Abstract and Brief Chronicles
by Underground Homesick Alien
Summary: A poleepkwa who is addicted to cat food becomes involved with the plans of a human from MNU.
1. Chapter 1: In the Moonlight

Chapter 1 - In The Moonlight

The cans themselves are nothing to look at. Walking or running among the here, a poleepkwa unfamiliar with them could easily mistake them for another part of the landscape. Mistake them for another piece of trash or not notice them at all. Humans might recognize it, though. They use it for a different purpose; it's called "Cat Food" because they give it to their "Cats". I have never seen a Cat before but apparently it is only like food to them.

It is not like food to us. Food for us is meat. There is more than one kind of food, I have been told by the older ones, "back" on our home planet, but I have never been there. They say there used to be more than one kind of food and also more than enough food, which is a sad thought to me because I have had to search for food, more or less, my whole life. Scavengers. That's what some humans call us because we are always looking for food among their trash piles. Ridiculous, that they would throw away still-eatable food, but it is good for us because then we get to have it. I do not have a family but some of the others do and having to find food is especially hard for them, they have to look more among the humans. Humans want us to stay away from them. But they have food, and so we cannot.

But food, not even squishy good round black-colored food, cannot compare to the wonderful brown Cat Food in its blue cans. When I see regular food I feel good, yes, because it means that I will not be hungry for the day, but when I see a can of Cat Food I am overjoyed. I look around to make sure that no one else has seen it. I pick it up and run, carrying it to my shack or another private place.

Cat Food does things to us that it does not do to humans, or their cats, and this is one of the thoughts, the wondering why it has this on us, that comes up as its effects trickle away, when I look around and sometimes find myself in a place I don't recognize and cannot remember going to. Tonight I found myself on a pile, underneath the clear night sky, and it seems like a nice place so I am going to stay here until I feel totally myself again.

Finding myself in a strange place is not a good thing, but the feeling that the Cat Food gives me is worth it, except for times like once when I ate two at the same time and that was too much, that time the feelings got too heavy and I think I might have almost died from it and halfway through the next day I ate just one and I woke up but in a place I didn't recognize for the first time. It happens every time now, even with a smaller amount.

It doesn't do this to the others, but then none of them seem to like it as much as me either.

I love it. And even in the times when I don't feel like loving it anymore, like after having two that one time, I still need it. And when I feel like I need it and have it, it feels good. It always does. The only bad thing about it is that the one who used to look after me and a few other orphans didn't like it when I found Cat Food, but then he had come from the home planet and hadn't ever had any himself. He really didn't like it even more when it became more important to me later and I had to start taking it in secretly before I became older and left.

I know that, rationally, whether or not others know doesn't really matter. Most of us like Cat Food to some degree. But still, even now, years later, because of that initial disapproval I try to stay quiet about it, always finding it on my own, never asking anyone else for some because then they might realize how much I like it.

The Cat Food continues to leave me. It's a strange feeling, a trickling sensation that is not pleasurable like the feelings it gave before but still relieving nonetheless. The numbness slowly slides away and I can feel my thoughts get clearer and my limbs return to my control again minute by minute. Nothing is broken.

But this clear feeling, which should just feel fine, also feels sad because it's here that I realize some facts about myself. That I can't remember what I've done between first having the Cat Food and waking up and I'm afraid of walking out into the District because I don't want to find out. That while I feel good now in a day or two at the most I'll have to get another can. Because I don't just eat it because I like the feeling.

I eat it because I need it. I'm not really in control of myself. Of what I want.

And so I feel depressed as I get to my feet and start to walk down this hill that I'm on, still checking myself to make sure that I'm all okay, readily monitoring my mental state

(I once tripped and almost broke one of my legs in the early stages of coming back, walking around but feeling dizzy but still walking because I could and if I seriously hurt myself here the humans wouldn't really care, especially if they found out that it was because of Cat Food, and my kind might want to but not be able to because there isn't much you can do for a broken limb out here besides keep it still)

and looking around to see where I am. Under the ship. The ship that floats endlessly in the sky as though inviting us to climb up to it. Half of a black circle in the sky, one side of its rim outlined slightly from the light of the moon above it. If we could fly up there somehow...but humans have tried that before. I wonder if they've tried bringing one of us up there with them to try and fix it...but then, even if we were up there and fixed it they might try to take it. Or force us to take them somewhere. And there might be only one or two poleepkwa in the District who know how to make it work.

I keep walking and find where the first line of shacks begin. Not a safe place to be. The shacks civilized poleepkwa live in are more near the front and center of the District. I and a few others have tried to keep order for the rest of them as best as we can. We know that gambling and prostitution are going to exist and realize that to ban it would only mean higher tensions or outright violence from gangs that don't need to keep good relations the way the other humans do, so we've made a deal with the gangs and they stay out here, away from the families and children. A compromise. A deal.

So now I'm passing through that, avoiding eye-contact with the humans and shady-looking poleepkwa out here, the humans probably not recognizing me and the others of my kind watching to see if I'm going to get on their case. I'm not. If I wasn't coming down off of Cat Food I would have felt free to look around, to examine them and see who would meet my gaze and who couldn't. I'd be a law enforcer, like the humans have, sneaking in and maybe even disguising myself a bit. I'd spend a day or two and fully scope out the place to see what they were up to. That would be good.

But for now I'm the one who can't look up, and I keep my eyes on the ground as the conversations fall silent around me, unsure if that's because of something I did from when I can't remember or just them being suspicious. It's late at night, too late for most of the things that take place here in the day, and at the back I pass by an empty ring where vermin from the ship fight each other for their entertainment and, nearer to the front, pass a couple of closed-down meat shops. One of the prostitutes wanders over and I tell her off in a righteous way that gets me feeling somewhat better. They'll at least know that I'm in my right mind now.

Here's the first of the dwellings that the older, dignified ones say we've been forced into, that I've lived in for my whole life.

Here is the area where I grew up, occupied by someone others now. I pass on.

Who else, in this part of the District, is awake at this time of the night? I see a fire in the distance and walk in that direction. Here I am, fellow poleepkwa, returning from a jaunt with a habit I distain at times like this, in my right mind now and hoping that I haven't done anything stupid.

And here is Joshua, blue and speckled with yellow, sitting around the fire and watching, wide-eyed, like he always does. Joshua is one of the average ones and younger than me. A good friend of mine. The younger parentless ones among us are taken care of by older mentors and if I had been forced to pick one I would have picked Joshua. We're good friends.

He sees me walk by the fire and follows after me, which is good-I don't like to be around anyone besides my closest friends right after the Cat Food has subsided. He knows about me and Cat Food. Like the others around the fire, despite my trying to keep quiet about it someone once found me on the ground in the middle of a Cat Food episode once and he told some of the poleepkwa he knew. Some of them around the fire have made a point of "staying clean", of finding other things to distract themselves from boredom with. That's why I stay away-the subject of Cat Food might come up somehow, whether in the form of them needling me, saying that I should stop (this has really only happened once or twice before but I can't seem to get over the memory of it) or just staying silent and ignoring me, and then I wouldn't know if it was because they didn't want to talk to me or because of the Cat Food or because they just didn't have anything to say. But I'd think the worst and feel strange, trying to be friendly with them when I don't know what they're thinking.

I am alone most of the time.

"Isn't it kind of late for you to still be up?" I ask Joshua in a good-natured way as we head for a quiet, empty spot I know about.

"No one is at the shack," he says, and that scares me slightly. I look over at him carefully and see no fear or anxiety in the side of his face. The poleepkwa who watch him are good, responsible ones, but they've also got a rebellious streak in them. That they are not here now means that they're either out looking for food or caused trouble and got taken by the human law-enforcers. It's a possibility. But perhaps Joshua just meant that they are somewhere else.

We reach the spot I know about. "All right," I say to Joshua. "How about we go rob one of those gangs I saw back there?"

"Sure!" he says, eager. "But..." and then he gets it, that there's only two of us, that we don't have any weapons. Basic logic. Good. He's growing. Learning.

"How about we go bust some humans?"

"No," he says. "Not if they aren't doing anything to us." That's the common acceptance among the averages, more or less approved of by poleepkwa like me. The only way we're going to get along with the humans is if we don't fight with them...and then I catch a glimpse of the ship floating above me and fully understand what it is for the first time that night, not just a ship or a shape in the sky but a reminder that we are not where we are supposed to be. My mind cries out suddenly for home, whatever it may look like, wherever it may be, for knowing that I'm where I belong, for not having to worry about things, for seven moons in the sky and poleepkwa around me.

The only good thing this planet has is Cat Food.

Joshua sees my face suddenly stricken with grief, and he asks me if I'm all right. Yes, I say, turning away, not wanting him to see me like this. Just please leave me alone for a moment. He does.

I look down from the ship, take a step forward and fall to my knees, overwhelmed with the situation we're in. On a planet that's not our own and we need to get home. But we can't.

And it comes just as I look into a puddle of water on the ground and see the ship reflected tantalizingly close, along with my own red face and green eyes-a sudden realization hits me hard.

**JAMES**.

And I'm off and running, darting through the shadows so Joshua won't see and come with me, weaving through the shacks, heart pounding and feet stomping against the ground, rushed but trying to be quiet at the same time so I won't wake up the others inside. Through the District. To a hole in the fence near the back.

Through it. Out into the streets outside with the feeling of hard pavement rather than grass beneath my feet. After quickly walking exposed down the sidewalk I find an alley and duck inside. I get a strange feeling that I've been here before and keep walking, not as fast here now because I don't know this city as well as the District. The humans here might hurt me if they find me. I am completely without any kind of weapon but could still do something if they tried anything hand-to-hand. Keeping a defensive mind is always important. Don't cause trouble but be ready for it.

Left, two rights, straight. Brief moments out in the open of the city streets. I run then, thankful for the darkness.

And there it is. A small store with large glass windows and an open parking lot. The windows are smashed and the lot is flooded with cars with flashing lights. A few have MNU written on the side. The sign in front of the store says GROCERY STORE. But it's quiet. A few humans are standing around, watching. More are inside the store. The lights flash but everything is silent.

James and I. We did this. Earlier tonight. Probably just before I took my dose of Cat Food for the night—otherwise I wouldn't remember it at all. But why? For money for Cat Food? For regular food? It would be one or the other.

I scramble into the alley and crouch down, hiding. This must have happened before my dose of Cat Food for the night, before the period of time when I wouldn't have remembered anything. But even when I am on Cat Food, I wouldn't do anything I wouldn't do clear-headed. Right? Could I have not been responsible? Yes, but then how did I know how to get here? Could James have done it without me? Or with another poleepkwa? With me there, watching? Possibly. I had a sudden remembrance about this place, how we got here, but don't know what happened or what for.

With time, I calm down slightly. I might not have done anything wrong. I was present when the store was...broken into? damaged?...but I might not have done it. But I need to find out for sure.

So I turn and start to walk away, back to the District.


	2. Chapter 2: Relations

Chapter 2 - Relations

I find myself in the darkness.

The surface I feel beneath me is cold. Smooth. Hard. The air isn't freezing cold or warm. There's no breeze whatsoever; it's completely still and quiet. That means I'm not back in the alley or in the District. And as these names occur to me what I did comes rushing back into my head, a startling realization both in that I can remember-this is rare, so soon after a Cat Food binge-and what happened. I remember the GROCERY STORE and James and how I think we may have smashed the place up for money and about seeing the gangs and Joshua and everything else about this long night. Is it night still? It may be morning. I still haven't opened my eyes yet. I passed out in the alley but I am not in the alley now; I may be being watched right now. Probably by humans-the surface I'm lying on now feels like cement, and who else would have moved me? What kind of humans? The gangs? From the District? Do they have a building somewhere? The more likely possibility is that I'm in the custody of MNU. More reason to keep my eyes closed for the time being. If I'm not with MNU or the gangs, I'm with an unknown third party. Friendly towards us? If I'm still intact, I can assume so.

So I very gently test my limbs and antennae; everything seems to be working, responding clearly...and this is another shock. The Cat Food I ate in the alley, in addition to what I had had earlier this evening, should have rendered me completely useless. Unless...is this a different day? I do not know what time it is, but the most likely explanation, unless humans have created an antidote to the effects of Cat Food, is that some time has passed—the last time I had as much Cat Food as I did last night it took a long time before the effects wore off.

The last thing I remember is the alley. How did I get here? Did MNU just happen to find me there? Did I wake up and stumble out, delirious and confused on Cat Food, and then they captured me and I can't remember because it happened within the amnesiac period of the Cat Food's effects? At some point they must have used something on me to get me to stay unconscious-I surely would remember something from after the alley otherwise.

If I didn't run out-and this seems to be most likely-if they just found me there, and I was able to fought them, would I of?

Would I have had the reasoning to understand that I wouldn't be able to beat them, especially in my condition, and that I would only be making things worse for myself? I hope that I hadn't.

I quiet my thoughts and for a moment just feel the weight of my face and body against the concrete beneath me. In this stillness, I think inward...and feel the clock of my mind. Of Cat Food. I feel a slight sickness, revulsion at the thought of more. Overdosed. I had taken too much earlier and all of it is now gone. After an overdose like that...a day has passed. A day or two.

I can feel this. I am familiar with these feelings; the bruised sickness of too much, the pleasantness which ranges from smooth and relaxing to pounding, pulsing waves of good feeling, which comes with having just enough, the dazed giddiness of immediately afterwards, the clear-headedness that will come when even more time has gone by. And, worst, the gnawing, restless need of wanting it, a twitching that begins in my subconscious and then invades my thoughts and spreads to my arms and legs so I can barely walk straight, unable to think of anything else besides getting more to put it at ease no matter how much I rationally may not want more.

Was this what had sent me out into the night with James? Could this feeling have sent me out for the humans' money? No. Anticipation of it did—it is the worst feeling and I must have thought that I would be feeling it soon if I didn't have some now. Either that or I just wanted to stockpile more for the future...why I would be persuaded to damage anything human would have to relate somehow to Cat Food.

But, even facing down that twitchy, gnawing feeling, I don't think I would have damaged a human store on my own. James must have wanted to. I don't remember much of that night before I found myself back in the District just like I just found myself in this cell here, but I do remember James. James was a friend of mine. What had he wanted to do? Or did I persuade him to go with me? Not likely.

I feel vibrations beneath me and am startled out of my thoughts, know that I am in a small room of some kind-the vibrations are rigid and through them I can just barely feel the walls that they are echoing from as well as that they are coming from somewhere behind me. That the walls are strong, not wood but concrete, perhaps, means that I am probably in a cell. An MNU cell with my feet pointed at the bars. Sprawled out on the floor, weak-looking. Fine. The guard, or whoever he is, probably thinks that I'm passed out. Good. If he tries to pull anything fast on me I'll be ready for him. I can feel him.

The footsteps stop. If I'm in a cell, the guard, or employee, or whoever he is, is right in front of the cell. Watching. Does he know that I'm awake? If they used some kind of a weapon or drug on me, however they found me, they must have used something to keep me asleep from then until now and this guard here may be expecting that it-or the latest dose of it—would have run out. He's here for a reason-he walked deliberately up to my door and is waiting there now, wasn't just randomly pacing.

I cannot keep pretending to be asleep. He expects me to wake up and is waiting there.

So I open my eyes for the first time, see an expanse of grey. Slowly get up, facing away from the guard. Shakily get to my feet. I'm looking at the wall of a cell. Turn around...and jerk violently back, only partly pretending, as I see that the bars of the cell are much closer to me than I expected them to be and the guard is standing directly outside of them, staring directly at me. With a gun on his hip and a bulletproof vest that reads MNU on his chest. A human soldier.

I suddenly hope that, if I looked weak on the floor, I don't look weak now. But then, would the humans recognize anything that we don't say aloud, besides their gestures clumsily repeated back at them by us? A poleepkwa looks like a 'prawn' to him, and whether or not he thinks I look strong or weak doesn't matter as long as he has a gun in his hands.

"Hands up," he orders, drawing and pointing it through the bars at me. I quickly make the humans' gesture for submission, opening my hands, raising them and displaying them to the guard.

He nods, unhooks a key from his pocket. He continues to watch me carefully, the gun pointed directly at my head.

"I'm not going to try anything," I say slowly. They call our language "clicking". To me it just sounds like regular speech. Theirs is the strange one—theirs has too many different levels and sounds to be understood easily. Pitches. Tones. Ours mostly stays the same, changes a little with the voice of the poleepkwa speaking it but doesn't have nearly as much range as theirs. We say what we mean.

He gives a very faint nod and slips his key into the lock, twists and unlocks it. Pulls the door open without looking away or moving the gun from my face. I keep my hands up.

He walks me at gunpoint down a hallway with empty cells on either side. We turn left, walk some more, then turn left again. He opens a plain wooden for me and pushes me in. This room has a steel table, chairs, and another doorway in the corner. I sit down without looking back at the guard. He slams the door behind me, making me wince.

And then, nothing. I put my hands on the table, study them, trying to look calm and relaxed to whomever may be watching. Tap them together. Feel the flat surface of the table. Look around. Nothing. Listen carefully. The only sound is the faint echoes of human speech from another room somewhere. Put my feet flat on the ground and feel. Nothing distinct—but then I'm only feeling with a small part of my body, and an insensitive one at that. Breathe. Take in air. Release it. Wonderful, that planets can have what we need to live. But then, we wouldn't be living if they didn't. From the stories the older ones tell, we wouldn't be living at all now if we hadn't ended up here. They don't seem to realize that. Think. I thought of a lot of things earlier, made a lot of guesses, but they are unhelpful as long as I can't ask James about them.

James. He had parents. He is an "earth child", just like me, but he hadn't been abandoned and grew up in relative safety. What would he want human money for? He doesn't have a family. Perhaps we didn't break the store for the money. What for, then? For the breaking itself, for the pure destruction of it? I would have wanted human money for Cat Food, but as far as I know he doesn't like Cat Food as much as I do.

I can feel small vibrations beneath my feet and feel myself tensing up. Humans. MNU. MNU is a dangerous place. I have heard that some poleepkwa who were taken to MNU didn't come back. Though I am prepared to fight if I have to my mind remains calm and steady. I will be ready if what comes through the door tries to hurt me. I might have a problem with the Cat Food but that's not all I am. I have thoughts. I am unique for a poleepkwa. I am intelligent and think my own thoughts. If I was on the home planet...I'd be a lot different than how I may be seen and thought of now.

They will not catch me by surprise. I am worth something, if only to Joshua and other friends like him.

The door in the left corner of the room in front of me opens and a person in a suit comes through and turns back towards the door. Humans that work for MNU are either soldiers or suits. And this one, short for his species, brown-colored hair and struggling to pull something through the door, doesn't look as though he is carrying a weapon.

"Why do you trust me enough to not have a weapon with you?" I feel relieved at being able to speak normally—humans outside of MNU have trouble understanding all but our simplest words.

"Because," he said as he tugs, "you're one of the smarter ones. And the smarter ones wouldn't attack...without...reason."

How does he know I am a smarter one? The only way they would know is if they questioned me earlier, after I woke up from the first blackout of Cat Food. Before they gave me what caused me to sleep until now. If humans had questioned me in that situation...I would have immediately started talking about lawyers and the press. So that's what I must have said. After I woke up from the first blackout, or maybe they awoke me somehow. Before they made me sleep again. During the time that always happens after taking Cat Food, the period of time that I won't be able to remember.

With another hard pull he gets what looks like a large chair through the doorway. But I am already sitting on a chair. Then, as he turns it and wheels it towards me, I see that while it is a chair, it is larger and different-shaped than a regular human chair. A chair for poleepkwa?

"Try it," he said, as he wheels it towards me. I get up slowly, back away carefully (putting my hands flat against the wall) and gently slide the small metal human chair out of the way with my foot. He seems to understand the message that I'm trying to get across—the same one that I gave the guard. That I'm not going to hurt him.

"You are one of the smarter ones," he said again, simply. He turned the chair towards me and I stepped forward and sat down in it, realizing that trusting him is a risk but feeling willing to do so because of his willingness to trust me. A human that will do anything besides ignore or threaten us is rare, and I have never heard of one inside MNU before.

The man walked over to his chair and sits down in it.

And began to speak. Slowly and quietly, always looking around. Nervous about what he was saying.

"My colleagues began to think that I was crazy when I drew up the plans for that chair," he said. "They don't believe that a prawn deserves anything else besides what we've got for them, and that goes beyond chairs. They don't know why you ended up here, on earth or above Johannesburg, and they don't care. I say different; I say, look at them. Proof that we're not alone in the universe. Any kind of life, especially life from a different planet, should be treated with respect. We should be helping you right now-to leave, if you want, and in the meantime we should make your stay here as comfortable as possible.

"There was some of that in the beginning, wasn't there? They like to laugh about it now—back when we weren't sure if your ship would or could blow us to pieces or not, back when we thought that there would be more of you, we were on our guard. All of humanity was watching us and we had to be sure to do the right thing. Now they call that respect 'ignorance', say that if the prawns can't hurt us then we don't have to be nice to them.

"And things deteriorated after that, didn't they? We got to understand you better-no, understand isn't the right word-we got to _know _you better as time went on. Or at least we thought we did-'a prawn is a mindless animal, an oversized insect,' that's what we came to know you as, and mistake it for understanding.

"I'm not going to say that I _understand_ you, now. That would be a conceited thing to say; I'm not sure if humans can ever come to fully understand a different species. What I can say"-he put his hands out, flat on the table, a gesture for humans, perhaps?-"is that I respect you."

Silence. I am confused by all this, expected questions or a lecture or something like that, something negative, hurtful. Now this human, this MNU human, is talking about us-humans and poleepkwa. Surprising. And good.

"You're one of the smart ones," he said. "I wouldn't be saying this to just any prawn, just one that would understand and be able to help me out. What I've got to say next...it could get me in trouble if you were to say anything to any of the other humans...or any prawn friend of yours that can't be trusted like I am trusting you now."

I ducked my head down and up, the human gesture for agreement/approval. I didn't have any friends I trusted that much.

I want to hear more.

The man leaned forward and whispered. "I can't say too much about it right now, because I'm supposed to be interrogating you and our interrogations don't usually last this long, but the basic point is that I'm using some of my influence within MNU to get to talk to prawns like you. I want to improve relations between our species, or at least show mine that things have to be changed. You're a first-time offender; it's not too late to change your mind about us, is it?"

First-time offender? Oh, yes. The GROCERY STORE. Why I'm here in the first place. "Can I trust you?" I asked as quietly as I could. Now he nodded yes, the motion coming much more naturally to him.

"I've got a problem with your Cat Food," I said, something I'd never imagine admitting to a human. But this human is different. "I had some of it last night and I woke up in this cell and I don't know how I got here. I...I don't hate humans and I need to find my friend, James. He's green colored," I finished, feeling pushed for time.

The man nodded again. "All right," he said, louder, as the behind us opened.

He looked over at the doorway. "The prawn here is just one of the workers. He doesn't have anything to do with what happened. When we release him it'll look good for MNU."

And he looked at me, and I didn't see anything in his eyes that matched what he had said. "I'll cuff him."

But as he cuffed me, he slipped a piece of paper into the pocket of one of the human clothes I wore.


	3. Chapter 3: Some Events

Chapter 3 - Some Events

A black bag-loose fitting-slipped over my head. It was thick. Everything went dark.

An unfamiliar pair of hands grabbed the back of my arms and led me outside of the room and into the hallway.

"Where are you taking me?" the question was out before I could stop myself, a momentary display of weakness that received no answer. This wasn't the human who had talked to me in the room, and the momentary feelings that I had felt before-that I had someone I could trust, that there was hope for the future, that everything was going to be all right-vanished. I was basically alone here, in MNU. That person back there may want to help but up to a certain point there wasn't much that he could do. His desire to ease tensions between our species...it was a starting point, but right now I'm being led through MNU with a black bag on my head. The motivation needed to fix things was crucial, but what I realized then as I was pushed along was that it would be a while before things would completely, or even noticeably, change. And it would take more than motivation.

The sounds around me abruptly changed from the quiet, distant echoes of humans' walking and talking sounds in the hallway to the larger, more open, drifting noises of a city street somewhere to my right. I was in a room...no, much larger than a room...an area. Being pushed forward again, I felt metal against the front of my legs and stepped up fast enough,

"Stay there." the only words spoken to me since I left the room. Then came the sound of a metal door being slammed shut and locked, and, a few seconds later, an engine starting. I was in one of their vehicles. "You'll be back in the District in half an hour, prawn," a muffled voice from...ahead? I leaned backwards, felt a metal barrier behind me. Shifted sideways, felt a padded bench against the other wall. I was in the back of one of their vehicles. Being taken back to the District. I crawled up onto the seat.

The human had kept to his word. I still had the black bag on my head but I also had the note he had slipped me. It was going to be all right. I was going to survive this encounter with MNU. I wondered where James was.

I still didn't know what role he had played in all this, but he had done something. I had given his name to the man in the office. And his color. That might be enough for him to find James. Maybe he would tell more of his plan to James. But James could also be mean. Would he approve of peaceful talks with humans? I had seen him trying to stir up the others into getting angry, but they could be hard to get excited.

Why were we friends? Because we had grown up together, that's right.

Sometimes I didn't like James and any liking I had for him would end completely if he passed up a chance to talk with the human in the office just on the principle that he was a proud poleepkwa who didn't talk with humans. Good motivations or not, the human in the office might not help one of my friends if that friend didn't treat him nice, or at least he wouldn't trust that friend enough to tell him his secret. But what was his secret? That he wanted to get along with us? That he cared? That wasn't much. That he was truly trying? Other humans, surely, want the same thing. Maybe he had a plan that would truly work. A plan that had to be kept secret, that he couldn't tell me about within MNU.

It seemed that I had found a human that I could trust...or at least I felt that way until I thought it out loud. Why did I feel as though I could trust this human? He had given me a chair and said good things, but then any human could say them. Perhaps it was the way he said them, sincerely...I didn't know why, but I felt as though I could. For now. He hadn't asked me to do anything for him, had only spoken. I wasn't sure what he would want me to do for him, but for now, I felt as though I could trust him enough to believe his words for the time being.

If I didn't give him a chance, based on his words that felt sincere; if I didn't trust him enough to at least want to meet him again, to hear what he was planning on doing, how could I expect other poleepkwa to? How could we ever hope to understand each other if we never let our guard down? Not all humans are liars. That a human from MNU could talk sincerely proved that. I would trust him that far.

I suddenly realized that, for all I thought I knew about humans in general, I really didn't know any of them very well, beyond first impressions: that they were indifferent to the point of cruelty, always wanting to keep away and always willing to turn violent...but then, my only interactions with them had been in the moments when I was outside of the District at night, running and looking for money or Cat Food or just some time away from the suffocating feeling of being trapped in a tiny square on a planet that doesn't care about me or my people.

Might the humans I met outside before have acted that way they did just because of the context? Becauseit was late at night and because I was running, did they think that I wanted to hurt them? Those humans that I had seen before, always on their guard, late at night, calling the police and acting mean towards me, had they been scared of me? When threatening them was the last thing on my mind, when I just wanted to leave them alone, be left alone, when I was filled with thoughts of a home I had never seen and only thing I wanted was more Cat Food, the humans that I saw then, did they think that I was going to hurt them? Because I was a poleepkwa?

Because they had only had or seen negative interactions with my species, in person or on their televisions, just like I had only had negative interactions with them? It had never occurred to me before. I had always thought that humans just were the way I had seen them acting, had never thought that there might be an actual reason for it.

Would those same humans act differently if they felt like they could?

Was that man in the office really that different from the average human? Had he been given an extraordinary insight into poleepkwa and had come to realize that he should help us because of it? Or had he just had a chance to see us in a more neutral context rather than out on the streets, a potential threat? Had seeing us be scared or ask for our families as we were detained changed his opinion of us, from mindless insect beasts to creatures with feelings?

Perhaps so. And perhaps the difference between him and the other humans that worked at MNU was that he chose to do something about it rather than turn a blind eye on the way that we were thought of after he had gained this insight.

Most humans, perhaps, could be this way. The difference between him and the average human I had met was that he had had this chance. Outside, in the District or on the streets, we felt as though we always had to be on guard from the humans who, in turn, felt as though they had to always be ready to defend themselves from us. They never saw anything beyond what they were told, what they expected to see...and the only way to resolve the situation would be if they could approach us without having to fear us, truly neutral instead of being defensive, like the man in the office who didn't have a gun and decided to trust me first. If humans and poleepkwa could get together and try to understand each other...but how many of them would really try? Humans especially? It's much easier for them to simply remain in ignorance. Because if they knew us for what we were, it would mean that they would have to change some things about themselves. They would have to admit that they were wrong.

The vehicle suddenly ground to a halt. Doors opening, doors closing. The door I was leaning against, the one in the back of the truck, suddenly opened and I tumbled out onto the ground. The black bag came off my head. A heavy boot pushed the back of my head into the ground while the handcuffs were removed. They didn't search me.

The two MNU guards-not heavy-duty soldiers but still armed-turned back towards the truck.

"What's your name?" I asked, on impulse.

One of them turned around. Contemplated me for a moment. Smiled.

"You ain't got nothing on me, prawn. What we did was totally legal, nothing no lawyer anywhere can say about it."

"I don't want a lawyer." I can see how the wide range of tone humans have available to them in their voices might be useful. Poleepkwa, when communicating with humans, only have words. "I just wanted to know."

Some explanation would be needed. I looked down at my wrists-they looked all right. "Some of my friends, when they get back from MNU, have bruises on their wrists. You didn't put the handcuffs on too tight. I just wanted to know your name, to say thanks."

The guard looked at me, evenly, for a long moment before responding.

"Patrick."

Then he walked away and got back into the truck.

After the truck left I reached into my pocket and withdrew the piece of paper, holding it between my two fingers and not opening it quite yet. A lot of my future, it seemed, was going to hinge on what was written on that tiny scrap and I didn't want to be disappointed by it. After contemplating it for a long moment, considering the great consequences that may come about from such a tiny thing, I slipped it into the pocket once more and begin walking along the stone barrier.

I soon knew where I was, that my shack was off to the right, nearer to the center of the District. But I wanted to see something first

I find a pile made of rubbish that had been thrown over the barrier throughout the years. I crawl partway up and pulled a piece of cardboard over my head so the humans outside wouldn't see me.

I can't see the ones directly in front of barrier, but the ones further away didn't seem to be paying attention to the District at all. I'm not quite sure what that meant.

And then I felt a painful _twinge _in my head knew, for certain now, that some time had passed since what I thought of as "last night". The sun indicated morning now, but it was the morning of at least the day after the GROCERY STORE.

Although I tried to pretend like it wasn't that important to me, that I liked it about as much as the other poleepkwa, at times like this I was faced with the clear truth: I needed Cat Food. Needed it. The questions I have for myself when I'm off of it-what could it be doing to me, why am I so hooked on it, what could I do to stop its hold on me-all those are blown away. They don't matter. All that matters right now is finding more so I can stop these feelings before they get really bad.

What was I doing here anyway? I had more important things to think about than considering the humans. Joshua. Was he still here? Had anything happened to the poleepkwa in the District since I left? Was there anyone who needed help, anything I could do, anywhere I needed to be? Those were the kinds of questions I usually asked myself.

And then those questions are blown away too. First things first: Where can I get more Cat Food?

But I managed to keep my head, somewhat. I was going to find James. James was the key to everything that had happened, and I was going to find him while I still had enough control to and look for Cat Food on the way.

I turned back from the stone barrier and saw a group of smaller poleepkwa standing around the pile.

They must have seen me getting dropped off by MNU. Unharmed. What would they think of that?

"Hello," I said, giving a little wave.

Silence for a long moment. Then a shorter, darker one near the front asked why I had gone to MNU.

"It was a mistake. They thought that I had something to do with an incident last night at a...human shop." I had only seen the words GROCERY STORE in writing.

"But you did. You and James went out and James said that he was going to smash the place up. James still hasn't gotten back yet." Interesting. But I already knew this. Was there any more to figure out? Yes. I still wanted to hear the whole thing from him.

"I'm still not sure about that. James went and I did too but I'm not sure what I did. But I know I wouldn't have smashed a human shop, and I told MNU that." I would not explain about Cat Food to them and hoped that they wouldn't question me further along those lines. "Who are you?" Messy.

"We're here to ask questions."

Anyone could have seen the MNU truck drop me off, but for a gang to show up like this and ask me questions meant organization. Besides, they showed up fast. "Who told you I'd be here?"

One at the front turned around to ask his friends something. I jumped down off the pile and started running. I don't want to have anything to do with them. I just want to find James. But someone tackled me to the ground before I could get more than a few steps away. More hold my arms and legs down.

"Hey, what is this?" I demanded. "What do you want? Why don't you just leave me alone?"

"You are a traitor," one says, leaning in close while the others keep their holds on me. "What did you tell them? Why did they let you go?"

Being called a traitor was a pretty serious accusation, and though they didn't have any proof to back them up, I could see why they might think that, especially if I had returned earlier than James had. "Look," I tried to explain, "I don't remember what happened last-I mean, that night-but I'm sure that I didn't do anything wrong. And as for MNU...it was a misunderstanding, and when I talked with them we got everything all sorted out and I know that I'm not a traitor. All that happened...they just found me outside the shop and asked me some questions. They hit me with something that had me out for a few days. But that's all."

But they didn't want explanations; they were still angry and apparently certain that I was a traitor. I wondered where their parents were.

They walked me over to one of their shacks-one that had all the little usual cracks patched up, making the inside completely dark-and tied me up to a chair. They said that I'd be there "until I talked."

"May I have some Cat Food?" the last one leaving laughed at this as he slammed the door shut behind him. And I understood: for them, Cat Food was a luxury.

So they left me alone there with the chair and my thoughts...only it became increasingly hard to think. I had gone longer than this without Cat Food, but not much longer.

Time passed. The occasional _twinge_ in my head became sharper. I started to feel sick. Not painful, really, just...sick. I swore to myself that I would stay silent, wouldn't betray what I was feeling.

And so I stayed in this discomfort, feeling increasingly worse as time went on. All around me was darkness-the shack I was in was empty except for the chair in the middle of the room. I could see the outline of the room around me. I leaned back and tried to sleep.

And was outside, next to the wall of the District, doubled over and feeling like vomiting but unable to-I hadn't eaten anything but Cat Food in the past few days. It was night.

"What's wrong?" a little chirping sound. I struggled to look around and fell over on my side. It was Joshua. We were outside the wall. It was nighttime. I must have blacked out earlier.

"Did you get me out?" Speaking took an enormous amount of effort.

"They said that you were a traitor..."

"I'm not a traitor. You know that."

"...but that's not true. I told them that you're a good, that you used to take care of me, or...no...that you're a friend of mine...so they let me in to see you and when they saw you slumped over like that, they untied and let you go."

The paper. I needed the paper. I still hadn't gotten to look at it yet. I checked my pockets. It was there.

But I couldn't read what was on it. Not without the book in my shack.

I struggled to stand to my feet. Joshua looked sympathetic but understood that there wasn't much he could do to help me. He knew about me and Cat Food.

"Have you heard anything from James?" Sickness in my stomach. But I could walk slowly.

"Yes-he got back after you."

"All right," I said, trying to speak clearly. "If you could find him, and tell him to meet me at my place, that would bevery helpful. Can you do that?"

He said he could. He ran off somewhere, while I stumbled towards my house.

It was late at night, and the moon was mostly blocked by the ship in the sky. Near-complete darkness. Disorienting; I had gone from day to night to day in what felt like less than a regular earth day. The older ones like to remind us earth-born poleepkwa about the planet where we belong. They say that an earth day is much shorter than one on our home planet.

A longer day. A longer night. Like most other things they say about "home", it sounds reassuring.

I get through the door into my shack. Luckily I have a flashlight that I found once but have never had to use; otherwise I would either have to find a fire, which could be dangerous for the little paper still in my hand, or try to find a poleepkwa who can read human words. That would also be risky-I don't know what it says, and another poleepkwa reading it might get me in trouble. It would certainly bring up questions.

I cannot understand any printed human words without the book. It was written back in the first days when we had arrived here-human words next to our scarcely-used-here written language. A major accomplishment; I don't know how it was written but it must have been difficult. Thousands of copies had been made then; only a few survive now.

The translation is slow work. The human words are placed in an order which would make sense to them if they were reading it, but to us, we can only recognize that the first symbols are the same. So you find that symbol and scroll down through the words beneath it with the light of the flashlight. Slow work. One word at a time.

WILL. BE. AT. SOUTH. EAST. CORNER. MOST. NIGHTS.

A half-hour of work to translate. A small message from a human who seemed as though he wanted to say far more when we had first met. But he couldn't write it all down here-he wanted me to meet him at the south east corner of the District. Most nights. I couldn't be there most nights...no, he meant that _he _would be there most nights. Most nights. Tonight?

I wanted to. Really. But I still felt sick and now from the time spent bending over the table my back felt stiff. My legs were still being clumsy. Most nights. If I was to go now, what kind of help would I be? I couldn't carry on an important conversation in this state. And I couldn't let the human think I wasn't the right poleepkwa to talk to.

I wanted to. But I could not. I was hungry and sick but most of all tired; I would have to look out for myself before I could meet him. I at least wanted to hear more of what he was planning.

I'm sorry...

I made my way over to the spot where I slept. Most nights...

Tomorrow night. I promise.

* * *

Thanks for the comments so far! There will be doubt, but hopefully you'll understand why he's willing to trust the human for now. This is, after all, before the real discussions begin...

Everything will be cleared up a bit...next chapter, I'm pretty sure. Also, you should know that the gang of younger poleepkwa he runs into are not a plot device. They will show up again.


	4. Chapter 4: Sick and Awake, Release

Chapter 4 – Sick and Awake / Release

Awake.

Sick and awake.

To feel okay, even while knowing that it's because of the Cat Food, is better than feeling like this.

I'm curled up on the floor of my shack, hiding from the little spots of sunlight that come through the roof. Hungry and sick and awake. Knowing Cat Food and meat, what I need, is outside but unable to summon the strength needed to face the sunlight and other poleepkwa and possibly more questions about what I've been doing, why I was at MNU. Questions I can't fully answer yet. But James is out there too. James and Joshua and all the other things in my life. I can't stay in here forever.

So I'll just wait until this sickness goes away. Yes. That sounds good.

The first thing I did after waking was crawl over to the corner next to the door where I had once buried a box with a can of Cat Food in it. The thought of one, in the ground where it would be nice and cool and just needing a practiced press and twist of my fingers to get it open, gave me the motivation needed to move.

Other poleepkwa prefer to simply crunch down on the can and suck out what's inside. I prefer to be a little more clean with mine, more refined, opening it with my hands in an almost casual way as though the Cat Food doesn't make that much of a difference either way. Sometimes after opening a can I like to stare at it for a few seconds, anticipating its taste, denying myself the pleasure at hand and enjoying it more when it comes because of that denial. When I find the box and the can this time I'm not going to be able to do that, won't be able to resist having it instantly but I will be sure to at least open it with my fingers. It will be an example of how I still have some control even at a time like this.

But the box wasn't there; that was clear after removing a few handfuls of the dirt. Then I thought that I might have picked the wrong corner, that perhaps it was at the left instead of the right, but I couldn't really believe that because the dirt at this corner had been loose, as though it had been dug up once and put back in place. I must have had it at an earlier time and forgotten about it. The box wouldn't be at the other corner but I checked anyway to be absolutely sure, and after confirming it retreated to the back of the room, where the darkness was most complete.

I am going to have to move eventually. That is the truth. I need to leave here to get it.

And so, understanding this and not wanting to go through the torture trying and failing and having to try again would bring, I strongly pushed myself up onto my feet, determined to get to the door the first time, feeling awful inside but basically still okay for slow walking. I walked to the edge of the door, opened it and looked out.

"Cory!"

My assigned human name. It was Joshua, sitting against the corner of the shack. He got to his feet. I felt dizzy and had to squint against the morning light to see him.

"Have you..." my mouth felt dry. I swallowed and tried again. "How long have you been out here?"

"I found James," Joshua launched ahead, "He's all right and he wanted to see you so I came back to tell you but you were asleep. So I sat down out here and fell asleep too." Joshua is good. He stayed out here all night for a friend. "Is that all right?" he finished, looking slightly worried.

"Of course it is, and thank you very much for it, though you could have woken me up...look, before I see James, I need to do something by myself-"

"Oh, I've got it for you right here." He reached into the pocket of his human vest and tossed a can of Cat Food to me. I clumsily tried to catch it but it slipped through my fingers and thudded against the ground. As I reached for it I felt a sudden wave of self-disgust. Joshua knows about my habit enough to supply me with Cat Food. He shouldn't have to. I should be able to take care of myself, shouldn't have to rely on a younger poleepkwa like him.

What kind of poleepkwa am I, that my friends are my friends because they keep me supplied with Cat Food? No, that's not right. I like Joshua for more than that. I like him because he's easy to be around, easy to talk to. I help him out with things sometimes. We became friends because I protected him from one of the human gangs once. And he returned the favor by getting me out of trouble once. I'll be here for as long as he is, will look out for him even if no one else notices. Someday we may leave this planet together, and though we won't be as close I will keep in touch with him. That's what our friendship is based on.

Only with every ounce of self-restraint I had was I able to put it the can in my pocket instead of popping it open and guzzling it down right there, right in front of Joshua; d- the consequences of possibly collapsing right in front of him like one of the ones that you're supposed to politely look away from, slumped over and useless and making all of us look bad. I didn't care. I didn't want to talk to James first. I wanted to tear into the can, swallow what's inside and end this sickness.

But I had questions that only James could answer. So relief would have to wait a little longer.

"Where is James?"

We found him in his shack, in a human chair, facing the wall with a flimsy discarded table in front of him, just another green-colored "prawn"; indistinguishable in a crowd of us to the species whose planet we had landed on, but this one was different, I knew. This one's brother had been hit by a human vehicle in the middle of one of their streets, broad daylight but the driver was unable to control himself, affected by his own human substance. That's what the carefully, painstakingly translated newspaper articles had said. Another one of their words had been ACCIDENT, and I knew what that meant but James hadn't been able to accept it like I had, being closer to the accident in question, which was understandable, but then he had turned violent towards humans, not actually doing much but planning, talking lots and trying to get others angry, which, in my opinion, wasn't right-he wasn't out for the human who had killed his brother, he was out for all humans. The right thing for me to do in that case would have been to talk to him about it, to try and get him to calm down...but I hadn't.

I didn't want to lose him and be thought of as a human-lover. At the time.

The sickness had focused somewhat, become a dull spread of illness that was sinking gently into the back of my head. The dim light seemed sharp and made my eyes ache. The cure was in my pocket.

"James." I said.

"Hello, Cory." He turned around, stood up and stepped aside from the table to show what was on it. A human gun. He picked it up and set it on a shelf on the wall. He looked depressed.

"I've got something to tell you," I began. "I was taken to MNU yesterday...a couple nights ago...and it had something to do with a...human shop that we trashed. And I think you had something to do with it. Do you remember it?" pleading desperately inside my head, hoping that he would, and feeling relieved when he indicated that he had.

"Yes. I remember it. It was my idea. It was where I got this gun-well, I had to throw it in the bushes so they wouldn't take it from me when they started showing up-but, yes, I remember. I don't think that it's right for an advocate of poleepkwa advancement to not face the enemy and state his purpose."

Confusion. "State your purpose? What do you mean? And how did you get me to go there?"

"We went on the condition that you would get to run away if anything went wrong...and that you would get to have the Cat Food you found in the store. That wasn't the point though...the point was to show that we are tired of being pushed around. The point was to pick a store, a random store, and smash it up." He looked a little happier now. "No humans would be harmed, and none were. You came along for the Cat Food but it was really a statement, Cory. A protest. To show that we're angry, but still willing to negotiate. And then the human police showed up and you ran off with a few cans of the cat food. I got taken to MNU." he said the last sentence in a proud way.

"Oh." I didn't remember any of this. Joshua was edging away from the door. I gave him a little nod of thanks and he ran away. Off to do whatever he did to pass the time. Of course, he probably had more friends of his own. Would he tell them what he just heard? It didn't matter. Not if James was proud about it.

"Well, look, later that night I woke up and didn't remember all that and went back and got taken to MNU."

"Really? You too?" He paused, thought for a second before speaking again. This wasn't how he usually acted. Was he humbled, somehow, by the effects of what he had done, by the news that his friend had also been taken to MNU? Or was it something else?

"Well, let me tell you, Cory, that wasn't supposed to happen. I was the leader; I was supposed to be the one taken to MNU. How did they treat you?"

"Um...I don't remember. Nothing bad..." I'd explain the human later. "How long ago did it happen?"

"Two days."

Two days. About what I had guessed. The humans had definitely used some kind of drug to keep me asleep. Or maybe they hadn't; maybe my blackout period had just been unusually long this time, after an overdose. I had never needed to know the exact amount time that had passed before.

"So..." he looked me up and down, noticed my swollen eyes, bitter expression and slight unsteadiness. "You need Cat Food." He said it as a fact. A neutral fact, no judgment attached. I love you, James. You may have your faults but you come through where I need you most.

"I've got some," I say, withdrawing the can in my pocket with trembling fingers, resisting the urge to squeeze down on it.

James didn't seem to notice the tension I was under. Or maybe he just had bigger things on his mind. Of course, even if he did recognize it, he wouldn't understand what it was like. "Let's go outside. I've got something to tell you."

So we did. We went out and I sat down while he remained standing, looking at this planet's sun as it continued to come up over the horizon. I closed my eyes against its brightness.

"I feel something in myself, Cory. Not just in my mind, but in my self, in my fingers and legs and feet. An itchiness. A craving. A craving to run, Cory. To get out of this place, off of this planet, eventually, but first to be out of this pathetic square of land that the humans have begrudgingly given us. There's enough room on this planet for all of us, you know. If the humans wanted to they could set aside one of their other places for us and let us live there; even if we're stuck on this planet we could live in better conditions than we're in now. They've come to think of us as liking where we are in their city because they've only seen us in their city. And because it's convenient for them to keep us where we are, under their thumb where we can be watched constantly. But in some other place, a place clean and separate from them, we could be happier. A place with houses, actual descent places to live, besides these shacks that we've got to be content with. Or even if they could let us walk around more of their city...but they won't. We've got to convince them that they should.

"This must be surprising to you, now, Cory. You probably think of me only as a poleepkwa who is hell-bent on revenge at all costs, ready to avenge the death of my brother at the hands of a murderous human. And, you know what? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I'd like nothing more than to break out of the District, walk up to the first human I find and punch my fist right through his skull. For my brother. Sometimes I think, 'the only good human is a dead one'. Maybe I'm just as hooked on that feeling-that deliciously justified sorrow-to-anger rush that I get when I think about my brother-as you are on your Cat Food. But then, later, when I've calmed down-I eat little bits of Cat Food sometimes, and it helps-I realize that that's not me talking. That's primal aggression, ancient ideals of eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth in the heat of anger. And I realize that, as painful as it will feel, I need to be above that. All of us have to be above that. We have to show the humans that we're smarter than that, that we work with logic and reason rather than just our emotions.

"We do need to get off this planet, Cory, and we have to start by getting out of this District. You may not agree with what I've said before, but I understand that the rest of them, the workers, are the true power. They're the ones who have to be shaken out of the acceptance that they've become accustomed to. And you've got to stop getting in my way-because I've changed now. I'm not furious anymore. I've finally come to accept what we need to do as well as what you've been saying about not provoking humans. But without provocation-without a push-nothing will change. We have to let them know that we want things to be changed, that we want them to let us out or help us go away, but we have to do it without really harming them-if we harm humans directly they'll call us violent and things will stay the way they are now, because then they'll think that they're justified in refusing us our freedom. They'll think that they're doing it for the right reasons. That's what the human store was about. About using violence selectively, reminding them that we're still here and getting uncomfortable. But without hurting them directly. Putting pressure for change on them, pressure to move us, a message that we're restless, here, but without killing any...that's what I'm about now. I've changed. And I've got a plan."

His words fall through my ears. I don't fully understand what he is saying and am too tired to respond. I'll think about it more later. I'll remember this.

"James..." I say. I hold the can out and notice that it is dented slightly, from a throw over the fence from a human, perhaps. To calm us down. And even in the haze of this sickness, a sudden realization hits me. Is Cat Food why I am the way I am? My default what-I-want being not freedom but peace, most of the time? Because I have what I want already? Is that good or bad?

James looks down and understands. Nods.

I rip off the lid and swallow what's inside.


	5. Chapter 5: The World Is Full of Shadows

Chapter 5 – The World Is Full of Shadows

Shortly after eating the contents of the can I crawled inside of James's shack. In the time between when I first ate it and when it began to work I remember staring, uncomprehending, as James continued to say things, his voice a long droning sound and his face and the things around me beginning to shift and melt before my eyes. When I had asked for permission he had nodded; he was talking to himself after that.

My last coherent thought was hoping that James would leave me alone while it happened. I've seen other poleepkwa on Cat Food before. It's not that exciting-they roll around, smell things, stumble across the ground if they try to walk and usually end up on it, mouth twisted into a gaping smile, eyes held wide open as waves of pleasure course through them. Unpleasant to the observer. Embarrassing to the poleepkwa in question, later. I didn't want James to see me like that, even more than I hadn't wanted Joshua to. Apparently he didn't either. When I woke up, I was alone.

There was no sadness this time, none of the dull, depressing thoughts that usually invade my enjoyment as the Cat Food subsides. This time I'm on to something else, the Cat Food merely a handicap, a crutch I can now cast aside. I have things to do, and this is a truly joyful feeling, untainted by the chemicals that produce most of my happiness. What I look forward to now, with no Cat Food in the way for the time being, is a job to do. Rather than mope around where I find myself or go search for friends who will ignore what I've done, instead of an endless stretch of boredom and frustration to confront, I have something important to do. Something productive. I was thrown into this situation with the grocery store and James and MNU, but I've made the best out of it. I talked with the human, or rather, really listened to him.

Self-esteem.

And now I'm going to meet with him again. I'm not going to sit around like I usually do-I'm going to get up, get out of this shack, find James, tell him what's up, and if he protests about me talking with the human instead of refusing point-blank like he would have I'll point out that he probably got out of MNU because of the human and the information I had given him. One of the human rules, I think, is that a place like MNU can hold poleepkwa for a long time before having to consider whether he's done wrong or not; poleepkwa are sometimes taken in and released only weeks later. This may be their form of what James was talking about earlier: non-killing, only this time non-violent, pressure. Against us. Because if the usual holding cells of MNU are as bad as they say they are and James looked depressed earlier because of them, a poleepkwa who breaks human law and is taken there won't want to go there again. It's the both of us forcing pressure on each other. And I know for sure that, because of poleepkwa like James, we're not going to give up first. But then, why should the humans? We've got nothing we can force them around with. So we can't get there by forcing, or at least we can't accomplish all that we want to-freedom from the District for starters-by forcing. They have to understand that we should be treated better, have to want to release us before anything will change.

And that's what I'm here for. From here on out. One contact with the human from MNU to start. I will meet him tonight, if he is at the south east corner tonight. With my Cat Food habit taken care of, I will be clear headed and in the perfect mental state for a meeting. I know what we want. I will not forget. I will talk with James but I will not forget what I have to do this evening.

I open the door and step out of the shack, eyes wide open. The sun is brighter but not as intense as it felt before. James is not here. Perhaps he is getting something to eat. From the light I can see that it is still early. There is plenty of time for me to find James before this evening, as well as something to eat for myself.

I turned right and began to run, then stopped cold.

There is a poleepkwa leaning against the wall of the shack opposite James'. He began to walk towards me, and a second later I realized that I had seen him before: he was one of the smaller poleepkwa in the gang that had run into me after the MNU truck had dropped me off. Dangerous? Possibly.

I backed up against the wall of James' shack as he drew closer and spread my hands out against the wall of the shack, the same thing I had done for the human in the office, an instinctive movement that I retracted quickly. I'm not going to fight you, smaller one, but I'm not going to let you intimidate me, either. I've got important things to do.

"What do you want?" the same question I had asked last time we met. The smaller one stopped his approach and regarded me carefully.

"My leader wants to see you. Follow me."

He turned around and began jogging easily to the west, away from the sun. Why should I follow him? Could he be leading me into an ambush with his little gang again? No, it wouldn't be his little gang, not with the leader he had just mentioned. If he wasn't lying. Either way, Joshua had reasoned with them earlier, convinced them that I wasn't a traitor. Otherwise they wouldn't have let me go.

There was a leader in charge, then. Who led a gang that had tackled me to the ground and called me a traitor. But then, if the gang had a leader, they might not have thought that I was a traitor-they would just be taking orders. So to stop them, and other poleepkwa, from thinking that I was a traitor...I should talk to the leader.

With what I was planning, having anyone think of me as a traitor would be a very bad thing-if the human heard it, he might not talk to me; if word spread around, they would not believe anything I said about humans. I have to stop them from thinking that.

So I went with the smaller prawn. He led me to the same boarded-up shack I had been at before. This time there was a folding table and two chairs inside. And a piece of meat, which I regarded hungrily.

"The leader will be here in a few minutes." I nodded and began eating as soon as he left. The human chair was close to the ground and jutted my knees above my waist. When the human built that chair, perhaps finding the right height off the ground for it was one of the first things he did. I was nervous then, in MNU, and they had the right chair. Now I'm feeling okay, back on familiar ground in a less comfortable chair and planning to leave here through what the human wanted to do.

But first, a little chore of insuring my credibility among my own people first.

The door swung open just as I was finishing the meat. The outline of a poleepkwa stepped into the dim room. "Hello," I said, dropping the bone onto the table. "Are you the leader of the...gang outside? What's your name?" A traitor would not be this confident, I was sure. From now on, when dealing with the unknown, at least present confidence.

"Not a gang, no," his voice said. He walked in and sat down on the chair opposite me. His was higher than mine. The light shone through the open door onto one side of his face.

"They're a...force," he said delicately. "A force that I control. A gang, you see, is composed of individuals who only serve themselves. Who are undisciplined, unorganized. Dangerous. Out for money or violence...what I have here is something different." This poleepkwa had a way of shifting when he spoke, of making little hissing sounds in the pauses between his words and waving his fingers slowly in the air, caressing the sides of his face, squinting as he looked up at the ceiling and always avoided my gaze. I got the distinct feeling that I shouldn't trust this one. As much as I felt like I could trust the human from MNU, I now felt in dislike towards the poleepkwa before me.

"They didn't seem that different to me when they attacked me after I got released from MNU."

"Well, you see...James, is it?"

I shook my head. Did he want to speak with James? "James is my friend. I'm Cory." Confusion on his face. "We both got taken to MNU at the same time."

"Oh! I see. Well, Cory, I must apologize. His release came over the radio that I have here..." He must have missed mine and sent his gang over to intercept the first poleepkwa who returned from MNU. If James was released while I was in the truck on the way here, and the gang didn't realize that I was here too soon to be James...it was possible.

More importantly, they had a radio? And he thought James was a traitor?

"James is not a traitor," I said, and the leader proceeded to assure me that he knew that my friend wasn't, that he had told his gang things like that because it gave them the excitement and motivation needed to stay under his control. Dangerous.

"Well, I suppose you can be excused now...Cory. Perhaps we'll meet again in the future?" He gave me a little wave with his fingers, clearly wanting me to leave but indicating so in a very delicate manner.

"All right," I said. I wasn't leaving quite yet. "Thanks for the meat...but one more question. Two, actually. First, why did you want to talk with James at all?"

"We...well, I found that we have...certain...similarities...in our respective goals. He had been trying to raise his own group or force from the other poleepkwa, had he not? I felt that...having succeeded in that very venture through methods of my own...I should offer my assistance to him."

"What are your goals?" I asked quietly. He regarded me for a long moment before answering.

"Complete..." There was a long pause and I could see him rewording, shortening his answer. "The same things he wants, only my vision of the future is a little more...complete, I should say."

"Complete as in what? Complete domination over the humans? You must have talked to him recently; he's given up that kind of thought lately. It's impossible, you know. We can't fight them. They'll only fight back harder." He would, though. James had changed and this one here, this leader, was what James used to be, only with the means to do so through the gang or force or whatever he wanted to call it, that he had acquired. He wouldn't be able to beat the humans but he could cause some serious trouble for all of us. He would fight them.

I could see the three of us now, James, I and this leader, and on a scale of what we wanted, he wanted the most, had hinted at the most anyway, while James and I were closer. James wanted some more space. I just wanted peace.

And the question I had asked myself earlier forcefully returned. Was I different because of the calmness Cat Food brings? Instead of having periods of rage like James did, or being able to sustain that energy long enough to form a gang like the poleepkwa before me had, I only had moments of despair and hopelessness. I didn't get angry. I got depressed.

While I knew what we needed, and agreed with James, I saw it all in a more abstract way than he or the one before me did. I wanted to get out but didn't have a driving urge for it.

Did Cat Food do this? When I had Cat Food I had all that I needed; as long as I had Cat Food I would survive Earth and MNU and humans for as long as I needed to. I had never seen my home, but James and the others hadn't seen it either.

They must have, or feel, something I didn't. A restlessness, like James had said. And I didn't have it. From personality or Cat Food or not being able to imagine home and seven moons the way they did, I didn't have it.

But that wasn't bad, really.

I could see things exactly the way they were. What would work and what wouldn't. No mindless hunger or need for freedom affecting my thinking whatsoever; I could be free as long as I had Cat Food. And, in turn, I saw exactly what the odds of us becoming free were. Perhaps this was why I got depressed instead of angry.

"If we get the humans angry at us they aren't going to change anything," I said.

"Unless we actually do something, they won't want to change things," he answered back, smoothly and confidently now, on familiar conversational territory. "I've never heard of you before, Cory, but I can guess at what you're thinking.

"You and your friends can stand around and talk about not harming the humans all day, but what the situation we're in comes down to is that humans have already harmed us. We have reasons for striking back. And we need to. If we don't-like I've always said-we'll be stuck in District 9 forever while poleepkwa like you keep preaching tolerance to keep us satisfied."

"What's going to get them to open the gate?" I demanded. "Me reasoning with them or you and your gang forcing it open?"

After saying it I realized that it was a real question. "You better hope you pick right. Because if you're wrong, they'll have their own reasons to keep us locked up."

He smiled. "That's why we need force," he whispered softly. "You're right. We have only one shot at...getting them to open their gate, as you put it. That's what the force of poleepkwa under my control is for."

"Your manipulated gang," I spat back at him, "tricked into fighting for you because they can't understand for themselves what the right thing to do is. What I want-and you must know this somewhere-is the right thing."

But after the question I had asked, I wasn't certain. Here I am, playing with the future of thousands of my kind, poleepkwa like Joshua, and I don't fully know what I'm doing. All I can do is what feels right. What I think is the right thing. I can't know. But I can think it over and make a decision from there. For all of us. Cat Food or not, I think I have the right path.

And this "leader" opposite me-"What's your name?" "Alec."-Alec, is doing the same thing. Well, let the best side win. I can't fight you. That would really make me a traitor, wouldn't it?

I left shortly after that.

Here is James, back from wherever he had gone to find food. After my encounter with Alec I walked back to his shack, quickly, so that none of his gang-or any other poleepkwa, for that matter-would be able to sneak up on me, and found it to be empty.

This wasn't good. I wanted his company. I wanted to hear more about what he wanted to do, so I could be straight on everything. I had just escaped one complicated maze of uncertainty and now found myself close to being ensnared in another.

So when he came I was glad to see him. I didn't want to let him know about Alec. Keeping the two of them apart from each other for the time being seemed like the best thing to do. So I let the news slide and as a consequence we didn't end up talking about much, which was relaxing. For the first time in a long time I felt as though I was in the company of a friend who thought of me as his equal, being on even mental footing with Cat Food out of the way, and I felt the same way about him. It was a good feeling and I would have been content to let it run on for a long time.

Only, I couldn't. Since the Cat Food episode that morning I had felt as though I had a purpose, a mission that was bigger than myself. And that meant that, at some point, I was going to have to share what I had found with someone. My ultimate plans for the future were somewhat hazy, but I could see us being released from the District and taken to somewhere else. (How would we bring the ship with us? Some would have to stay here).

Though interactions with the humans wouldn't involve many poleepkwa, and most of our species would be content with moving without needing to know exactly how it came about, for my plan, whatever it would turn out to be, to work, I would need additional help besides myself. I needed to include James. Now, when things were just getting started, would be the best time-I needed James to trust me like I thought I could trust the human, and that meant that there couldn't be any secrets between us.

And so I tentatively breached the subject of where I would be that evening.

"Listen," I said, breaking the long silence. "Everything I know about humans...or what I thought I knew...has changed. Because, really, you can think that you know that not all of them are bad and all that, but until you actually meet one, you might tell it to yourself but you won't actually believe it."

My mistake here was that I assumed that he thought this at all.

"What are you saying, Cory?"

"Well...how were you released?"

"The usual way, I guess. A couple guards came and let me out..." He held up his wrists and I saw that the fiction I had invented earlier, about bruised wrists from tight human handcuffs, actually did happen.

"And what time was this?"

"I don't know."

"Look," I said. "I'll just tell you straight out: when I was in MNU I met a human. He's different from all the others, James; he doesn't want to hurt us and doesn't ignore us either. He wants to help us, wants to fix things between us and the rest of them. And he gave me a piece of paper that told me where to meet him tonight. I'm going."

He sat there in silence for a long moment, perhaps thinking over my words just as I had thought over his earlier this morning. Then he got up and went inside his shack, slamming the door behind him. I went in after him. He was sitting at the table with his back to me.

"What's wrong, James? You should be happy about this."

"How do you know that you should trust him, Cory? He's a human. From MNU. Until we are released from the District, all humans are enemies." He turned and looked over his shoulder at me. "What were you thinking?"

Here was the James that I knew from before. So perhaps he hadn't changed at all...no, that wasn't right. He had changed. From wanting to hurt the enemy to wanting to damage his belongings. Was I wrong to think that there was a difference between him and poleepkwa like Alec? I suddenly felt dizzy.

"Because he talked about respect, James, right in the middle of MNU, and he had a nice chair and..." it didn't sound like much, just talking about it. You had to have been there. I wish I had had more time with him, more to go off of. "I felt like I could," I said lamely. "You may not agree, or believe me, but that's because you weren't there. I told him about you and he got you out of MNU. That's what counts. That's all the evidence I need to trust him."

"You're being stupid, Cory. Anyone can talk about respect."

"He meant it."

"I know what humans are like, Cory. Everyone does."

"No. You just think you do. For all your talk earlier, you really haven't changed much at all, have you?"

James stayed silent. "I'm not a traitor," I said, though he might not have heard that. "Ask Joshua if you don't believe me."

Silence. Then he turned away again and said, slowly: "You can't trust any humans. Especially not any from MNU. And as for my talk earlier...they're still the enemy. We're not going to get anywhere if they think that we'll work with them. They have to work with us. You can't trust humans."

I left him with his face still to the wall. Arguing with a friend of mine like this hurt me, but there were bigger things at stake and he never was that great of a friend anyway.

The worst feeling that I know, worse than hunger or what comes after a long period of time with no Cat Food, is uncertainty. Right now, as I waited for the sun to go down so I could walk to the south east corner, I wasn't completely sure of anything. Alec and James didn't seem that different now and I was the only one who could make all of their plans unnecessary. But they might go ahead anyway, because what I was planning would take time. Neither wouldn't like that-Alec had gang he had to keep under control by promising them excitement. And James had his restlessness.

Was talking to James might a mistake? I had expected congratulations, encouragement. Appreciation at my including him. But then, why should he act that way? Just as most humans hadn't encountered any poleepkwa that were different than they expected them to be, so James hadn't talked with any humans who genuinely cared about us.

And now the sun is sinking down below the edge of the District behind me and my good feelings have been deflated. To an extent, James was right. This human is from MNU. I can't forget that. I am speaking with the enemy here, even if this particular one has good intentions. No...I couldn't think like that. That wasn't fair, not if I expected him to think of me as anything beyond his human stereotype of a poleepkwa. A prawn. Still. I can't let my guard down entirely. He probably won't either. Until we get to know each other better...that's the state of mind I'll be in. Ready to run, but approaching and talking with an open mind. For as long as I can.

Will be at the south east corner most nights. The corner of the District; the end of our world.

* * *

NOTE: Sorry for the delay, this chapter was supposed to have the conversation between Cory and the human but then it got out of control. They will talk next chapter—it's too important to be lumped in at the end of all this here. (Next chapter will also be shorter.)

The reviews were very helpful, thanks for holding on, it'll be worth the wait.

And, also, this chapter's title perhaps should have been the story's title.


	6. Chapter 6: The Conversation

Chapter 6 - The Conversation

It is night, now, on this side of this planet. Yet their moon shines brightly, enough for me to see the outline of the human as he stepped out from his own gap in the fence.

It took a moment for him to recognize me, and then I heard his voice.

"You know, you're a different prawn, aren't you? Out of all the ones I've tried to talk to-when I could-only a few of them listened. And out of the ones who listened, or seemed like they were listening, and were trustworthy enough to be given directions to where I would be, you're the only one who has showed up."

Of course there had to be more. Let's be reasonable, here. But it still feels strange.

I know this is him, and yet don't know him at all.

That's where to start.

"What's your name?"

There is a moment of hesitation before he answers with the name "Brian Johnson."

"All right then...when we first talked, in MNU, you said that you wanted to...'improve things', right? You wanted to show them that they were wrong. Since then, I've been talking with some of my friends here-"

"Talking with them? What do you mean?" He steps backwards, looks around. "Did you bring them here? What did you tell them?"

"No, of course not. None of them would trust a human anyway. I just have been talking with them to find out what they want."

"Yeah? And what is that?"

"We want to be let out of the District. We want our own space. And better treatment, too."

Silence.

"Eventually," I concede. "I know that it's not going to happen fast, but-"

"Happen fast?" the human looks sad. "Of course it's not going to happen fast. You might be thinking a little far into the future, here-"

"But with humans like you from MNU on our side-"

"Humans? No. I'm sorry, but if there are other humans who want what I want at MNU I haven't found them yet. It's just you and me...you, a single prawn with a police record already-even if you are innocent-and me, and I could lose my job." He waves his arm behind him. "Against all of them. Against what they think. Against everything."

Silence.

"What they think is that it's easiest for prawns to be kept in places like District 9. Places-there's been some talk about eventually moving some or all of you to a different location, but even if they did, it would be pretty much exactly the same as it is here. Guarded. Patrolled."

"Walled in," I say. "I've been talking with my friends, and I...I don't think...look, I think what you, humans, want is to keep yourselves and your planet safe. Fine, because, we just want to be safe too. We don't want to hurt humans, humans want to hurt us because we want to leave where we are now."

He tenses up and looks like he could argue with that last line, which isn't entirely true. But he lets me continue.

"We understand things now, we know what's acceptable and what isn't. If we had to settle for another place where we were still being watched, that's fine, as long as we can have some control over where we want to go. We need some space." I point to the sign that hangs from the fence, beyond which is an empty field. The sign has a drawing of one of us with a large red mark through it. The sign says KEEP OUT. "None of that. You have to learn to trust us. And we to trust you."

Brian looks at the sign, then back at me. "I know."

I thought he would understand.

"But I'm just one guy. I don't...look...I want to help you. You know that. But what I had been thinking of when I first contacted you was a lot smaller than what you're talking about."

"What were you thinking of?"

"Well, you know, better treatment for prawns, less violence on your part, better...I don't know. I just want things to calm down. I want you to be thought of as better as you are. Because I care. I don't know why."

He pauses, and I can see all of what he had been planning on collapse in his mind. "What am I doing here? I don't know. I just think things could be better. I think I should do something."

I feel sorry for him, suddenly, and lay my hand on his shoulder. He doesn't move.

"I know you want to help," I say, "but if you really want to help us, better treatment within the District isn't going to do it. It's a start, but it can't end there." I look around and consider the insanity of the situation we're in. "Things are going to get really bad between us if you don't let us go soon."

Brian shifts away from my hand and stares at the ground.

"It's not going to happen fast," he said. "Humans will be humans, prawns will be prawns. And if you lash out at us, we'll only hit back harder."

"But what if humans knew our reasons? Why we were lashing out? And if we didn't kill any of you, just destroyed your things..."

"So that's what the Grocery Store was about." He looked up and sighed heavily. "It might work, and it might not. Why should we let you out of the District when you're only proving to us why you should be kept in?"

"Do you have a better idea?"

Silence.

"So, basically, what you're saying is that it's up to us? We're on our own?"

"I suppose so."

"But what about your big speech you made earlier? About how you respect us and you're going to try and do everything you can for us and you've been using your influence within MNU to try and talk to us?"

He shrugged. "I'm just one person. Most prawns won't talk to me." He took a step backward. "Trying to talk to other humans is even harder."

"I'm just one prawn," I echoed. "None of them are going to listen to me, either. Not that I won't try."

That stopped him. He had turned around and begun to walk away, in disappointment, probably. Or maybe he was just tired.

"I do try," he said. "Look at me. Right now. I'm risking my life out here. If another prawn was to find me...or a night guard, for that matter..."

We were alone in the darkness. But I understood his point. "Well. At least I know you, right?"

"Sure." He looked back. "We should probably meet again."

"Three days," I said. Enough time for me to scope out the situation within the District further.

He nodded, and turned around again, facing the fence and his world outside.

"I'm sorry," he said, and left me there.

* * *

NOTE: The story could end here. This is a place where it could end.


	7. Chapter 7: In the Darkness

Chapter 7 – In the Darkness

The air feels different out here, looser and easier to breathe. I wonder if the humans do anything, chemically, to what's within the District before dismissing that thought as paranoia. They don't need to, and while it feels a little better to be outside it's still a nerve-wracking experience, especially with what we plan on doing. I look around and feel as though I am being watched or hunted, even though we haven't done anything wrong yet. They will by the end of the night—be hunting for us. But for now, Joshua and I and this other poleepkwa I don't know, for now, we are innocent. And for a while, I don't care about the consequences.

By the time the sun came up after the human and I talked, I realized that I should have been prepared for something like this. He hadn't given me false hopes; he had said that he wanted to help us and the rest of my excitement had come from myself. Losing that feeling of hope when he told me how things really were hurt, but that wasn't his fault.

And as I walked away from where we had met I also understood that I had to re-establish contact with James. If my plans weren't going to work out, I would help him with his. As long as they didn't hurt humans directly, I would help him spread messages for our common goal.

So I searched (scavenged, really, just like the humans say) and found a can of Cat Food which I then offered as an apology, and it was a very weird moment, our roles reversed and me beginning to feel the wanting for some and wondering what else I could offer if he didn't accept it, trying to remember what exactly I had said and how angry I might have gotten him, but he took it and asked me some questions and, wanting to keep things simple and not let on more about the human, I simply said that I had waited all night and he hadn't shown up. He said something about humans being untrustworthy. I agreed.

But even as I agreed I was remembering that Brian Johnson had been his name. I wanted to check but had no way to. Perhaps by using Alec's radio? If he had a radio. He could have been lying, and even if he hadn't, there would be no way for me to ask a question of it. It was pointless.

And I fully understood for the first time that everything I had felt yesterday was meaningless. All that I had planned, everything I had imagined, wasn't going to happen. It was beside the point now, and the point was the situation and the situation was that we were trapped. Over and over again, my mind returned to this and I felt as though I were mentally smashing against a wall again and again.

It was a delayed reaction that had finally caught up with me.

We are not going to get out of here, and details about whether the human was telling the truth about his name, what his real name might be, how far he truly trusted me or even how much I could trust him were useless. What did matter was that I had to find a way to get out of here or make some kind of peace with the humans or that all of us as a whole find some kind of balance with them before our population gets too large or we get too desperate (if the rest of them are thinking or feeling what James and I are) and lose our reasoning and lash out or go crazy and make the humans angry or move us to someplace else or just start to systematically get rid of us somehow.

What mattered was that we had to get to the ship...but we can't, and it might not work, and here I am, back down on the ground again, walking dazed and unable to remember what just happened and nothing matters except controlling this frantic urge to run and smash through the wall of the District and run outside, get hit by a human vehicle or be shot maybe, it doesn't matter, I'm just as much of a detail, a number, statistic with an assigned name, CORY WILSON, as any of us are to the humans.

For some reason this realization, that I wasn't much of anything to them, always hit the hardest. I have always been me, and always will be, and yet I am nothing to them. The thought is unbearable.

Panic, a shrill echoing whine through my head.

...

I got control of myself after an hour or two when I ran into one of the stone walls in frustration. Nothing was hurt, and that was a relief, and the shock of what might have happened, the immediate soaking regret of what I had done, quelled everything else.

Staying uninjured is the number-one priority for survival. You lose your health, you lose everything. And nobody would care...no. No. That wasn't true. We care about each other.

And this is what matters, above all else. That we have each other, or rather, that everyone has someone. I can only feel that kind of connection with Joshua. Others can feel that sense of belonging, of being in the company of friends, for everyone, our species as a whole. While I don't have that feeling, I do know that I care about them. That's what matters.

I held on to that thought as I walked back to James' shack. He was in the same condition as I almost always used to be, a dose of Cat Food not far in the past. I peer into his eyes and see that they are dilated. A second passes before he recognizes me.

"Hello, Cory." His voice is slow and heavy, as though he was speaking through a thickness in his throat that required effort to get through. I sat down beside him. "Thanks for the Cat Food." I relaxed, and felt a dim sense of belonging, sitting next to him. As though we were brothers, reunited after a long time apart.

And then, slowly, because the moment seemed to require it, he began to speak. Softly, slowly, he unraveled his plan to me, and with the two of us sitting side by side in the darkness of his shack, him plotting and me listening, it sounded more mysterious, more important, more real, in a way, than it would actually be in real life.

The first thing he said was that he was very sorry, but he won't be able to go on this mission with us. The reason, he says, is that if MNU captures him again he would get in serious trouble, more than he had been in before, and MNU would know that he was planning against them, and this would be bad for everyone. He tells me that while he will be as dedicated to his cause as he always has been, from now on he will have to assume the role of the planner, the general, out of plain sight.

Within the shack, this seems reasonable.

Outside of it, in the daylight outside, what he had been "planning" didn't seem like much, but despite that, in the condition that I was in at the moment, with no other friends and no other plans, the thought of rebelling, even if by small measures like throwing rocks, took on the air of something much more epic and important. And so, even before he finished explaining why throwing rocks with messages on them would begin the change of everything and get us all we had dreamed of, I had agreed to take part in what he was planning. Because while my first attempt had failed, the idea of an uncompromisingly glorious future for us had caught hold within me.

For this "mission", as he liked to call it, James had talked and brought in two other poleepkwa he knew: a green one I didn't know, and Joshua.

I didn't want him to go. I didn't want him to know anything about James, either, but James had gotten to him somehow.

I should have known from that time when he had found James so quickly. If he hadn't known him, he wouldn't have found him that fast. He had been waiting for me to wake up in the morning. And he had taken me straight to his shack.

A secret partnership, between James and Joshua. And neither of them had told me.

Perhaps they had thought I would protest, and I certainly felt like it now. My first instinct was to say that Joshua was too young, but he wasn't, really. He was old enough by now to make his own decisions, and with his "parents"—who wouldn't be able to stop him completely anyway—gone, apparently, I couldn't either. So I said nothing.

It was a simple choice for him, and for James too, for James had an unswerving passion for what he was doing. For me, having Joshua along, putting a friend of mine in danger, as well as doing something that would hurt the humans—even though there was a good reason behind it—meant that I was crossing over from being completely pure. I had always thought of myself as being good. Now I still was, but putting a friend of mine in danger would mean compromising that a bit.

Well, I told myself in the space of time between when James and I had met up with Joshua and the other poleepkwa (whom I now did not want to know, considering what I was leading him into), you can't expect to accomplish something as big as this without making some hard decisions.

And so, after that seemingly endless restless period of time, I met the two of them at another section of the barrier with a hole. They were carrying rocks which I attached a message to, painstakingly written out on salvaged pieces of paper, with a pen I had found once somewhere during hours of endless walking, and secured them to the rocks with ties made from rope and string: LET US GO.

Where would we go? It didn't matter. Not for now—questions as to what we would actually do with our freedom if we got it were for the future. Let someone else figure out. Or let me figure it out...but not now. Now was the time for action. We would handle the later details as they occurred.

In the darkness we found parked cars in empty places. The three of us shared the load of the rocks, four or five each, all with the same message, and we did the first few of them exactly right, just the way that James had told us to.

When we found a car that would become our target we would hide in the nearest alley while Joshua would slowly creep over to wait at the other end, watching carefully. I would watch the other end, my nerves humming with anticipation, while the third poleepkwa, would boldly run out into the night and heave his rock through the windshield of the car.

The crashing sound would always seem too loud to go unnoticed in the stillness of the night, but we always got away and ran, followed Joshua to the next safe place to hide, feeling terror and anxiety and also a maniac, joyful glee at what we were doing, striking back, enjoying the destruction and thought of the damage we must be causing to the humans.

And then, at the end of one alley, what greeted us was not a car but a store, different than the Grocery Store I had seen before, which greeted the eye with signs and a few windows. This was a building, perhaps not a store, which presented no excitement to the humans that must pass by in the day. This one only had a plain sign on top which we could not read, a large, open parking lot uninterrupted by the machines which the Grocery Store had, and several wide sheets of glass beyond which lay darkness and the outline of a few unfamiliar shapes.

The three of us stood looking at this store from the shadows for a long time before approaching it, intimidated by the way that it seemed to coolly stand, indifferent to our presence, a change from the small, weak cars that had given themselves over to us so easily earlier. This was the real thing. This was a real thing. To damage this structure would mean more effect and greater risks than the cars we had wounded earlier.

To step forward, to follow the green poleepkwa who gathered up his courage first and ran across the parking lot before us, was a mistake, but it was a mistake that I made consciously. I'll admit to that. I have made mistakes in the past, and can excuse most of them as the fault of the Cat Food or the poleepkwa I was with. Not this time. This time I was totally in control, conscious enough to realize that I was very likely going to end up regretting what I was doing even as I tore across the parking lot, rocks in hand.

And so, even as I appeared to lose myself in the initial destruction of the store windows, I was still there the whole time, aware enough to hold onto my one remaining rock and use it as a club to smash the remaining window rather than throwing it like I had thrown the ones before. And as we progressed to the real damage, stepping through broken frames and into the store and began to smash and overturn the objects that we found inside, I had the sense of mind enough both to feel the sting of the fragments of glass in my feet and to set the rock carefully on the ground, with the words printed on its paper facing outward, so that the humans would know who had upset the balance of their world and understand why.

It was in this feeling, a strange sobriety in the wake of madness unfolding, that I heard the sound outside, a sound not of sirens but of footsteps, of rubber slapping against cement, a few or a crowd of humans making their way towards us in the darkness. How well can humans see during their night? Well enough to get here, though there were no lights outside. How well can they hear? Well enough to receive the noisy crashing we had created and forgotten about due to our earlier luck and know what it meant.

I dropped the chair that I was holding.

They would find us. That was clear. Even if we ran now they would find us, and in the darkness they would not be able to read the message on the rock; the context of our actions would be lost and we would instead be seen purely as what they thought of us as; what they had been trained to be afraid of: mindless creatures that would hurt them.

I grabbed Joshua, who had stayed close to me this whole time, and though I did not know or want to know him I swear that I yelled a warning as loud as I could to the third poleepkwa before running for another exit, a side door that I had seen and noted when we first came in. I don't know if he tried to make his way out or if he was too wrapped up in the moment of exhilaration to recognize the danger outside.

With Joshua's hand in mind I realized what a colossal mistake I had made and promised myself that I would do whatever it took to get him out. We reached the door and after I managed to get it open, clumsily wrapping both of my hands around the slick metal sphere, we ran out into the night, still together.

We met one human in the darkness, a nightmare lurching shadow of a figure that jumped out and tried to tackle me to the ground as I ran. I pushed him aside without thinking, punched him instinctively in the stomach when he tried to hold on to my arm, and kept running for the safety of the District and its stone walls that would shelter us.


	8. Chapter 8: A Friend, A Normal Poleepkwa

Chapter 8 - A Friend, A Normal Poleepkwa

Was this a betrayal?

The thought occurred to me as we entered the District again through a hole similar enough to the one where I had met the human at. Where I had met Brian at. He had trusted me enough to meet me there, and the very next night, this night, I went and destroyed human property, exactly the kind of thing he had wanted to talk to me about stopping in the first place

Well, no matter how much he wanted to help us, he would always be a human, not a poleepkwa, and would always see things as a human. That's why he wanted things to simply be better for us—and for them—without even thinking of releasing us from the District and MNU. The humans wanted us here and he would always be a human, would always want a human's goals, just like I would always be a poleepkwa and knew that I had to do something.

If he did heard about this—none of the things we destroyed belonged to MNU—he wouldn't think of me. He would think of us in general, and maybe he and the rest of them would think that it was a normal, mindless, average crime, until they found the paper, three words, a poor substitute for all that we needed to say, but a start, an explanation for what had happened.

If Brian ever learned it would seem like a betrayal, but I knew the difference, and it would be progress for the rest of them, a message, something the humans couldn't ignore, because otherwise none of them would have cared...

And then I remembered how Brian had approached me and saved James from more time in MNU, and I felt guilty for thinking again that they were all the same, forgetting what this one human had done for me...but this wasn't the same as regretting what had happened, was it? I hadn't thrown those rocks because of Brian—I had thrown them because of every other human I had ever come in contact with. They had to be thrown, because that was the only way to get our message across.

If I had been alone that night I would have spent the rest of it by myself, alone and leaning against the barrier, watching this moon's slow progress across the night sky and thinking about what I wanted and what the price for it would be. Going with James's plan may have been okay but involving Joshua in it, letting him become involved...that shouldn't have happened. Maybe I shouldn't have done this at all, or waited until I was more clear-headed—when I agreed go along I had been addled by the sense of despair that had consumed me earlier. At that time I would have agreed to do anything that seemed like it would help then, but that had been before the rocks had actually been thrown and before actual contact with the humans, when I grabbed Joshua and ran.

Was that what was making me feel so unsure of myself? The poleepkwa we had left behind, the one that I didn't want to know? He would make it out if he put his weapon down. Those humans who had showed up had been drawn by the crashing sounds, and I think that there were only a few of them—two or three, not a gang like I had feared. The other one would be all right if he came to his senses fast enough, and I couldn't have done anything to help him—my responsibility was firmly with Joshua. That James would blame me for leaving him behind? No—he would have expected me to look after Joshua first. Bringing a third one in that the two of us didn't know was his own problem.

That I had pushed away the very kind of person that the message was intended for as we fled the scene of the crime? Try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to feel sympathy for that human.

Then what was the reason for this slow uneasiness that had replaced my sense of confidence? Joshua being here? Joshua knowing James? Well, it was a surprise, but I couldn't expect me to be his only friend because he was my only. And of course I should have expected something like this; he easily could have met James somewhere and come to know him since Joshua was my friend and I was sometimes friendly with James.

Perhaps it was the way that Joshua had simply shown up, ready to go. He had known about what we were going to do before I had, I think. James wouldn't have needed to explain his sudden change in opinion concerning how humans should be treated, like he did to me. Joshua would be easier to convince and control. To lead. That's why I didn't want him to go with us, because it would feel like I was taking advantage of a friend, but everything had turned out okay and we had gotten away together.

And, in the end, wasn't that that what mattered?

No. Not quite.

"Joshua?" we were in the comforting darkness of my shack, the closest one from where we had come back into the District. He had taken the bed and I didn't want to keep him from sleep. But I did want his opinion.

"Do you think we did the right thing?"

"Yes."

Of course we had, and, relieved with this opinion from a simpler poleepkwa who perhaps understood more than I did, I told myself not to over-confuse things. I told myself: if you look too carefully at all the little details, the motivations of violence with a message perhaps merely as justification and feelings of betrayal that above all must be kept personal and secret from anyone else, you can get lost and lose track. But don't ever forget the direction you can always follow: what would be best for poleepkwa. At the moment, it had been James' plan, and no amount of personal anxiety was going to change that.

In that way, we had done the right thing, despite what the human or I may think about it.

The rest of the night passed slowly as I lay on the floor and floated between silent wakefulness and uneasy sleep, and in the morning, after Joshua woke up, I felt relaxed but not entirely rested. I had told the human that I would meet him three days, or rather three nights, later. Yesterday was only a night later—so much could happen in a day, after so many days when nothing happened at all—and that meant that I would meet him the night after this night. Only there was no excitement in the thought this time. There was comfort, but the happy anticipation that I had felt before the meeting last time was gone. He wouldn't have solutions.

Still, I would take what I could. Nothing is perfect. And, nothing ever goes exactly the way you want it to.

And if I needed any confirmation of that, I would only have to look at James.

Before he had spoken about sending others in his place, becoming more of a leader or general to his plans than one of the volunteers he would direct. He had said it in a cool, reluctant way, playing the part perfectly, and the easy way he had said it had betrayed that he was at least partly faking his regret at not being able to go.

He wasn't faking it now. He had sent the three of us out, and only two had returned. He was feeling horrible about it—a taste of the real price of leadership—and I was glad that I didn't know the third poleepkwa.

He hadn't said this, but I could tell what he was thinking and feeling. He hadn't calmly walked out to meet us, like I'm sure he had imagined he would. Rather, he had been waiting outside for us and he had seemed uneasy, looking around and waiting for a while longer outside before coming in to join us in his shack. The first thing he asked was what had happened to the third one, only from the way he said it I could tell that he already knew the answer, that had given up hope that he must have expected him earlier. It made sense—Joshua and I were a pair; our friendship was stronger than Joshua's was with James, I think, and James would want someone he had that kind of friendship with to go with us. I would, if I were James. So he had convinced his friend, and his friend hadn't returned.

He was happy to hear about what we had done, that all of the rocks bearing his message had been delivered, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was too distracted by his loss to celebrate his small victory. He had lost his edge, his passion, his motivation. He had lost it with his friend who hadn't returned, and even if he came back from MNU he would still feel guilty about it.

But he would get it back. I'm sure that he would get it back. Even if his friend never returned from MNU—if the humans had taken him to MNU—he would eventually come back and try again because of the anger that would always be somewhere in him, no matter how sad he felt now. And when he got that anger back, it would be worse than before because he would be avenging two now, as well as the more important but also more abstract concept of our entire race.

And he would come back to me, saying that I didn't have a record with MNU like he did, and try to persuade me to be a part of another one of his missions. Maybe he would go too—he could justify it to himself. But I couldn't. Not anymore. I had lost track of my personal values, but it wouldn't happen again. I would continue to fight for what was best for poleepkwa, but I would do it in my way, with the human Brian, even if it never worked out. I had briefly lost that moral sense in my despair, and it wouldn't happen again.

"I'm through," I said, and having something that I could believe in felt good. "Something has to be done, but this isn't the way to do it. Any kind of violence or aggression against the humans is only going to get us in more trouble."

"What are you planning on doing, then?" James asked, Joshua standing behind him in the corner. James, whose basic core strength, the values that he would always return to, were still intact no matter what he may be feeling at the moment. "Cowering? Putting up with what we've got until we've got nothing left?"

"Nothing left? We're still growing. We're surviving here."

"Until we get to be too much of a problem for the humans to deal with?"

"They're not going to harm us if we don't harm them."

"Until we are swallowed up by this planet, or worse, get used to it? Forget ours? Where we should be?"

He was trying to play with my emotions, provoke a reaction out of me. But I didn't have those emotional chords. Not like he did.

"You may try and justify your anger against humans by tying scraps of paper to the rocks you throw," I said, "but I'll always know what the emphasis is."

"And what are you going to do, then?"

I would never tell him about Brian. "I don't know. But not this. You may think you've changed, but as long as you keep heading down this path you're only fooling yourself."

But of course. He said that he had changed to get me to go along with him. He probably hadn't changed at all.

I thought for a second.

"I'm still your friend, James, and I'll keep writing your messages when you need them, but I won't take part in throwing them."

What I had done wasn't a betrayal, I don't think, and it didn't matter if it was. It wouldn't happen again and Brian would never find out. I would be back where I needed to be, doing what I thought was right, even if it didn't lead to anything. What we thought was right was all any of us could ever do.

And then I made my mistake.

I turned to Joshua and expected him to side with me. Because he was my friend.

But he had his own opinions about what was right, too.

"Come on, Joshua."

He looked at James first, then walked outside with me but didn't step farther with that.

"I'm staying with James," he said.

"Why?" I asked, surprised, having never encountered anything besides compliance and support from Joshua.

"Because...we've got to do something," and he said it slowly, but because he was choosing his words carefully, not because he was stupid. There would be no long speeches from him, but there would be more importance behind each of his words. Given enough time, he could say anything that he wanted to.

"Joshua," I said, knowing that I had lost the argument already, "what James wants isn't going to make everything better."

"Maybe not. But you're not going to do anything, are you?"

Poor Joshua. Needing to see something to understand that a change is happening. Easy to be manipulated by ones like James…but then, he truly thought that this was the right thing, didn't he? And I didn't know everything either. Maybe him and James were what we needed, more than my hopeless efforts at peace.

Well, each to his own. I wouldn't take part in theirs, and he wouldn't take part in mine.

"You're still my friend, Cory."

All right.

Because he wasn't my son. He was my friend. He was almost as old as I was. He could make his own decisions. Three words on a piece of paper might not make much of a difference; a few rocks might not either. At least there would be a reason behind it this time. Even if James was still only chasing revenge for his brother, there would still be a reason. And I couldn't stop James but I could help to create good out of what he was doing. That's how it would be.

"Thank you...for everything," I said, and by everything I meant that he had saved me from Alec's gang, for the time he had warned me about some humans on the outside of the barrier when I was going to go outside, for the all the times we had stayed together, late at night or during the day, sitting together and not needing to say anything and getting through the situation that we were in, moment by moment, by staying together. And for the Cat Food he had brought me.

"I want to see you again."

"Really?"

"Yes. This...this is important, Joshua, but it's not the only thing." Wasn't it, though?

He nodded and looked at the ground.

"Take care of yourself."

We left, and went our separate directions. I didn't have anything else in mind for the day, or tomorrow, until I could return to the place where I could talk to the human. I didn't know what I would say, but I would say something.

But on the way back to my shack I saw something: a shack that appeared and had started to pass by on my left was missing part of its roof. I stopped walking and examined it closer, seeing how the whole structure leaned slightly towards where I was standing now, the rest of it looking pretty solid except for this large hole in the ceiling.

I knocked on the door. There was no one inside.

A hole in one's roof during a sunny day would mean a lack of shade inside; it would be more of a problem if it rained tonight or got cold. I leaned in closer and examined the hole, found that it had jagged edges which were bent inward slightly, as though something heavy had been thrown into it.

This shack was far from the barrier, from the outside, where something could be thrown in. Maybe the gangs had done it.

Why wasn't my business, though.

I finished walking to my shack, examined it carefully and found a huge, square board that formed part of the wall. Using a piece of metal, I pried part of it from the wall and saw that there was still another board behind it. After pulling the rest of it off I began dragging it through the District and was soon joined wordlessly by a yellow and black poleepkwa who helped to pick the back of it up. We carried it to the damaged shack and both lifted it onto the ceiling and put it in place. I left the nails that had previously attached it to mine by the doorway. A rock could be used to pound it in, but I didn't want to be found doing that, since the shack wasn't mine.

"That's better," I said aloud, but the poleepkwa who had helped me had already left.

We take care of each other. This was true, and this would be the thought I would use to sooth myself when I got too agitated with the situation. One way or the other, through the human or James and Joshua's messages, we would be heard. And we will show them that we are more than they think we are.

Then I left to find a Cat Food, which I would hold on to until tomorrow morning, to be ready for tomorrow evening.

* * *

NOTES:

1. This may be my favorite chapter so far.

2. Due to an imminent vacation, the last chapters of Abstract and Brief Chronicles will be postponed until August 10th. I apologize for the delay.

3. The ending will be worth it. I have seen it, and it is going to be awesome.


	9. Chapter 9: What Is Acceptable?

Chapter 9 - What Is Acceptable? (Two For All?)

"You have to realize that MNU isn't all bad."

MNU was what we were most afraid of, the enemy, representative of all that was bad in humans. The captor. The controller.

"I know that you don't like being in the District, and if I were you, I wouldn't like it either. I know it's not right for you, and it could be better, and I'll try to help you in any way that I can, but, tell me, what other option is there? What else can we do?"

I stood, listening. A light breeze rose and drifted between us on the night air.

"You just can't live with humans. I love you and respect you and your species and all that...I really do...but I also have to face the real world, here, and you have to understand that too. Prawns cause problems for humans. That's the truth. We're too different to get along together—to live together, like you say—and I know that that's not going to change. How can you expect it to? We're from different species. It's no one's fault, but it is a problem.

"As for living by yourselves in some forest somewhere...it's a nice idea, but it's just not going to work."

I shouldn't have told him what I had really been thinking of—my most precious dreams and fantasies. I needed to believe in those. Another rule, then: always keep the most delicate and important thoughts and dreams secret.

"Hard as it is, you need us. The situation, our situation, is as simple as that."

He stops talking. I attempt to bring the conversation back onto familiar ground that I can argue. "But things can't keep going the way they are—" I feel slightly dizzy.

"No, they can't," the human cuts in. "You—your end, prawns—have got to learn to stop hurting and hating us...did you hear about what happened a couple of nights ago?"

"No. I don't think so." My heart beats rapidly as I hold still. "Or maybe I did. What was it?"

"A couple prawns decided to throw rocks through the windows of some cars and an office building. No provocation, no cause, no humans anywhere. The press loved it." He runs one hand through his hair and looks at the ground. "Makes my job a lot harder, telling people to stay calm, to keep an open mind, not to attack you, when you're attacking us—not that that's strictly my job, by the way. Makes me unsure of just what I'm doing here, talking to you, and MNU and every other human like me who tries to be nice is thinking the exact same thing. You—"

"I didn't do anything wrong!" I scream at him. Can't let him think I had anything to do with it. You want to help me and I want to help you, but we're also members of our respective species, and that's the way it's always going to be.

"I didn't go along with it, but I know for a fact—and I found this out after it happened, mind you—I know that the one who did its' brother had been killed by a human car!"

"A lot of damage for one prawn to do all by himself," the human responds coolly. "And I'll bet that his friends didn't have a reason as noble."

His response—no sympathy whatsoever for the killed poleepkwa—sickens me slightly. But then, how could a human be expected to feel sympathy for one of us that he didn't know? "You're right, he brought his friends along, but the fact is the same...if one of us, somehow, killed one of you—"

"You have." His voice stays cool, but his eyes are harder now. "Prawns aren't innocent, Cory. Don't pretend like you are."

"I am...but that's not the point...what I'm trying to say, is, what would you have done? What would humans have done, for that matter? Would you have smashed up some of our houses...or would you have gotten true revenge? We restrained ourselves." The fate of James' brother had, mostly, bounced indifferently off the ears of those he had tried to tell about it. Everyone has their own problems.

Against the silence that followed, I become aware that I am breathing hard, and regret the outburst. The human has no reason to be here, other than his own feelings. We can't argue. Our conversation has to be kept constructive. "Besides, the rocks were supposed to have little pieces of paper tied to them. Messages." How many possible futures hang on the words that I say?

The human takes a step back and considers me. "You were involved with this somehow, weren't you. How else would you know that?"

"All right…look, I heard about this, and I wrote the messages for them. That's all." I've crossed a line. Now I can never be entirely innocent in this human's eyes again.

"What did these messages say?"

"Let us go."

Quiet, and then Brian sighs.

"We can't 'let you go', Cory. No matter how much I wish we could, it's not going to happen. Believe me, it's going to hurt us in the long run, too, having to look after all of you and support you as well, especially with how destructive you can be."

Spinning his side of the story. It's real easy for him to say that, from the outside looking in. For you it's paying costs to keep your city safe; for me, it's an ongoing struggle to exist. I just want my Cat Food. And to go home.

"So." I've been everywhere with this human, from thinking that he was the savior of my race, to disappointment and anger. He had said that he respects and wants to understand us; now he brings the "real world" into it. "What do you want?"

He inhales deeply. "Cory…you need humans. Getting out of the District, us 'letting you go', isn't going to solve your problems. What will help, what's really going to change things for the better, will be you and us, prawns and humans, working together and keeping each other safe. That means that, for starters, you can't do anything more destructive—for a good cause or not. When we—humans—feel as though we need to do something, and when the rest of them out there feel the way I do—sympathy and respect and understanding and everything I want for you—that's when things are going to change. When you have true human support. When we want to help you. When we feel that we have to.

"It's going to happen within the District, and it may not be what you've been dreaming of, but it will be better. Take it or leave it."

I think it over. And I think I understand. But will the rest of them? It doesn't really matter right now.

"All right. How?"

"By putting positive pressure on the rest of the humans. By showing something that they can't ignore: proof that things are wrong here."

"How?"

He holds up a video camera. A video of me talking is my first thought, along with the knowledge that that wouldn't change anything, wouldn't create the hard impact we needed to.

The humans would need proof.

He left the choice up to me, and said that two MNU soldiers would be sent around to my shack at about noon tomorrow. He left the choice up to me, and said that they would be angry, looking to arrest the prawns responsible for the damage done to human property.

The damage they will inflict will be out of proportion to a few thrown rocks. That I am certain of. The damage these guards would do, these unarmed (I received assurances on this point; I couldn't go through with it if I knew that a fellow poleepkwa would be killed), angry guards (staying uninjured is the number-one priority for survival in the District) will be recorded by the camera up near the roof. They'd never expect that kind of a thing, not from a prawn and certainly not from a human committing his own betrayal.

These kinds of things happen. This time, all the humans will know about it.

Brian says that he'll pass it off to all the major news networks after it's put on the internet. Positive pressure. Proof. An ugly proof. A horrible, disgusting taste of what can happen here. Brian will meet me tonight and I'll have my own excuses ready, in case any poleepkwa asks. He told me to meet him tonight and we both knew that I wouldn't be volunteering for this mission. How I would get two poleepkwa into my shack at noon is a decision left up to me.

I asked him to guarantee me that no one gets killed, and he says that he can do that, as best as he possibly can. They will be hurt—the thought of it sickens me, drives me to my knees, but it has to be acknowledged; considered—but they will not be killed.

And the video of them, being kicked around and beaten up by these two guards, will act as fuel on the dim fire of non-human rights, will drive the humans, content with the way things are, into defense for us. No one will doubt it or its authenticity, after the poleepkwa are released and questioned in person. MNU will survive.

An act of violence that would have happened in some form anyway will be used to improve things and our lives will be better. I believe that; have to if I am going to go through with this. James didn't know what he was getting into; I think I do and am preparing myself for it. Things will be better. I believe that.

"James," I say. He has taken another dose of Cat Food. Perhaps Joshua brought it to him, and then left. He is lying on the floor of his shack.

His head rolls towards me. I stoop down so he can understand me.

Cat Food. An attempt to dull his guilt over the poleepkwa who didn't return? Well, he may join him in MNU, soon enough.

This is a cold thought.

Root what I say in truth. If he comes back and questions me, I can say that I was just trying to help the common cause. That is what these two conversations will be about; that is what I am doing is actually about. No poleepkwa could subdue their survival instinct and remain in that room while the minutes tick down before the guards enter; and yet they would both want the results that it will have. Perhaps all of this can be explained to them later.

"James. When I came back from MNU, a poleepkwa named Alec, who controls a gang, brought me over to where he lives. He said that he wants to talk to you. He has a gang and knows that you had been trying to make one of your own, once. He wants to talk to you." Slow sentences, and James nods. This is getting through. I remind myself that I react differently to the Cat Food. I'm far more hooked on it and affected by it than any of the rest of them are.

"He will meet you at my shack at noon today." I see a black hole that I may disappear into and never find my way out of again, and am suddenly consumed by the need to do this right. I lean in closer. "Do you understand me, James?"

"I…understand." Slow, slurred speech that takes an effort to force out. I have been in that state before and feel disgusted with myself.

"He wants to talk to you. He wants to help you. And he is going to meet you at my shack at noon, when the sun is highest in the sky. Do you understand that?"

He nods.

"Will you be there?"

He nods again.

"Good."

We poleepkwa trust each other. We have to.

The next one, Alec, was more difficult, because he was thinking, and easier, in a way, because I wasn't friends with him like I had been with James once.

I felt doubt only once—in the time between when I walked in and when he appeared to see me, the same delay as last time. I tried to reassure and remind myself that I would do everything right; the camera was already in position and I knew what button I would have to press, the lies I would have to tell, the blessed justification to myself in the face of becoming a traitor (which was why I had ever come in contact with Alec at all, come to think of it). I would be branded one for sure in the eyes of my fellow poleepkwa, if they ever found out, and most of them would be incapable of understanding how this is going to help them.

This is the best option for us, and the result will justify anything that may happen to them. Or to me, if they ever find out.

This is the test, then—am I willing to risk their fury (being killed, myself) over this? Do I believe in what I am going to do strongly enough to run the same risk as those that I put in danger?

Yes. I do.

The meeting was simple. When he finally appeared and sat down in front of me for the second and hopefully last time, I asked if he was still interested in meeting James, talked about the compromise we had reached—my words on his rocks (Alec, I believe, thinks of me as a weak, peace-loving poleepkwa)—and how our last venture into the human city had been carried off successfully. What Alec dreamed of was poleepkwa domination, a dream that would be more even more impossible to realize than my fantasies of our own forests and cities. More dangerous, too. What he wanted meant that he might not like the idea of compromising with the humans through the messages I had written, but that part was coming from me, not James. He would realize that once he had partnered up with James the two of them could cut me out. This would be an appealing thought for him—both contact with James and me gone.

I told him that he could meet James at my shack at noon.

There was a pause, a moment's silence, as he considered my words.

Then, startlingly fast, he leaned forward and grabbed my head with one hand, my arms with the other. After the shock of being touched subsided I quieted my nerves and went limp in his hands.

He pulled me closer, staring into my opened eyes…

And stayed like that, as though searching for a hidden truth he had instinctively sensed in my last few words, the reason why I had really come to talk to him. I remained calm and stared right back, understanding his need for security and comfortable, above all, in the ultimate knowledge that I was doing the right thing.

"Will you be there?" he let me go and I sat back in my seat.

"He's going to be at your place. Will you be there too?"

"No." This is the delicate part. "I won't. This might not make a lot of sense to you, but I don't agree with what he's doing. Planning on doing. I won't stand in his way—he wanted to meet you and talk to you—and I won't prevent that from happening, but I won't support it either. He wanted to meet at my shack. Maybe his is a mess right now, I don't know. I can help him this much."

"So…what do you want?" unlike the last time we met, there is no menace in his voice. It is as though something passed between us and he feels like he can trust me now.

"I don't know." I get up and walk for the door. "Not this," meaning the shack and the District beyond it. "Not you, either."

And a sentence leaps unbidden from a deeper place in my mind, beyond conscious thought. A truly honest answer.

"I think…I want Cat Food." Alec reaches into the pocket of his jacket, withdraws a can and tosses it to me. I grasp it and feel the familiar urge.

"I've kind of fallen into this, you know? There's only a few things that I'm certain of." But the moment between us has passed, and I can sense that Alec's mind has moved on to other things.


	10. Chapter 10: The Quiet Life

Chapter 10 – The Quiet Life

As I stand in the tattered remains of what was my shack—half of it has collapsed to the ground, probably due to me removing a section of it earlier—and withdraw the video camera from amongst the rubble, no feelings of terrible regret or remorse crash down on me like the desperation which had led me outside a few days ago. There is no sudden revelation, no glimpse of understanding or truth, of the right thing I must do now and what penance I should have for my mistake in the meantime. I feel nothing. I am a void.

Alec and James were there. I saw the humans enter, and turned away before they exited. I am a coward for that, a weak leader if I had ever thought of myself as one, afraid to face the consequences of my actions.

I am tired.

I will give the camera to Brian tonight, and a part of me hopes that what it has seen will be terrible, unignorable. But I will not watch it, or even attempt to see the results of my actions in the human newspapers.

If Alec and James ask me questions, I will have answers for them. I will not give them the whole truth.

Tonight the human may ask to meet me again, and I will politely refuse. I do not feel regret for my actions, but they will not happen again. My way may be the answer for us, but I will no longer pursue it. The future of poleepkwa does not belong to me, for I would betray us on the strength of my ideas' hold.

Tomorrow, and the day after, I will look for Cat Food.

Alec returned. I have not seen James, and have made no inquiries.

Alec returned full of rage, having found during his encounter with MNU the courage needed to use the gang he has amassed.

He has not asked me for help, for the creation of messages, and to offer my help would be a waste of time, and possibly dangerous, for me. From what I have heard, the first thing he has been planning involves a train. Those around him would not betray him to the humans. I will stand aside.

And I would have gone on like this for the rest of my life, having learned lessons through my brief contact with the feeling of power, the excitement of control. The delicious intoxication of dreaming. I had experienced these things, but in the end I wanted no more of them.

* * *

Note: The next chapter will be the last. This I am certain of—there are probably ways that the story could continue on, but they would be for the sake of length, not for the story.


	11. Chapter 11: Encounters in the Darkness

Chapter 11: Encounters in the Darkness

A knocking sound comes from the front door. Awake—without Cat Food I have been having a lot of sleepless nights lately—I straighten up and smash my head on the ceiling of this shack. I clench my fists and fall down, but make no sound.

This is not my shack. A few days after what happened, the other half collapsed. If the humans ever do come in with intentions of making things better, repairs can be one of the things they can do. Repairing that particular shack would be especially important to the kinder ones, and if they found me living there, they might have questions for me. At the very least, it might look disrespectful.

So I've been living in different abandoned places every night, and spending a few outside, next to a fire or out in open space, staring up at the moon. And thinking. Not about escape or improvement; just more general thoughts.

Why am I here? Where did I come from? Am I a soul, or just a brain in a body? Out of the billions upon billions of different creatures I could inhabit, if I was a soul, why did I end up a poleepkwa? Why not a human? Why not some other species that I have learned about, an isolated planet somewhere that has no idea if any other life exists? Why a poleepkwa? Why an intelligent animal, for that matter? Could I have ended up living my life as one of the vermin that crawls on our ship, completely unaware of its purpose and killed…for being me, for happening to be in the wrong place? Because of the fear that I may carry diseases, because I am disliked by my poleepkwan shipmates?

And even if I did end up a poleepkwa, what kind of astronomical odds would have me be born on this planet at that time? Out of the millions and millions and millions of poleepkwa I could have ended up as, I ended up a part of the small fraction whose parents would be on that ship so I would be born on this planet. What a cruel fate this is, to be born and live out one's life on a planet that is not his own home! Why did I end up here? Was it something I did in a past life?

On the other side of the coin, I may be just a brain. There may be no soul to me at all, nothing at all to me except for the tiny electrical impulses that make me think. But then…I'm more than that. I know I am. I'm me…but am I, or is this feeling just an illusion?

If so…why?

Being in the District makes up almost all of who I am; I can't avoid the subject, but I can think of it in more abstract terms.

The pain in my head lingers on as I reach the door, grasp the handle and pull it open.

Another poleepkwa, a green one, is standing in front of me.

"Excuse me. I must have the wrong shack."

"No, no, you may have the right one—mine got destroyed, and I'm sorry for staying here, it's just that I needed a place to sleep for the night and this one looked empty…" I've had this conversation a few times before. It always makes me feel uncomfortable.

"Do you know where Shawn is?"

"No. I don't think so….is he a friend of yours?"

"I'm his mate."

"Oh."

So I left, and paced the empty District, and came around to more familiar places I once knew. A poleepkwa stopped me and looked me over closely. I did not recognize him.

"Are you Cory Wilson?"

A queasy sensation of falling briefly came upon me. "Yes."

I'm not going to back away from what I've done. I can explain what happened and why. If they will listen.

"Follow me," he said, and we both ran into the darkness, tracing a path which had now become familiar—a route to Alec's shack. I saw his gang there, I think, and it was thirty or so of us, all looking about the same in the darkness, standing around with a feeling of excitement crackling through the air.

A few of them are holding lights, and as we step into their reach I recognize the poleepkwa who has brought me here. It is Joshua. I didn't recognize his voice. Has it been that long?

"Joshua…What's going on?"

"We've caught one sneaking inside."

"We? What do you mean?"

I could see more and more of them joining the group, outsiders, who had no idea of what was going on and why, gathering outside of Alec's shack and spreading the word.

"Alec's gang."

"You're with them now?"

"There's no them. There's us, what we want. And we want out."

He steps forward, probably thinking that he's evading another tiresome debate.

"This is Cory Wilson."

It has been a while.

He pushes me into the shack, and Alec is inside.

I launch into speech—"Look, I'm very very sorry about what happened with you and James—you have to know that I didn't have anything to do with it, I was just passing on what James wanted to do, he wanted to meet you there—"

"You're referring to the…incident…which took place at your residence?"

"Yes." And I pick up something from the way he spoke: he's not going to go into detail about it. Not here, not now. Acknowledging what happened may motivate us poleepkwa, but it also makes him look weak.

"I don't think you had anything to do with that," he said solemnly—"you want to help us, in your own strange way."

"Yes."

"Good. Well, you can do that right now."

He stands up.

"One of my…people…who was recently taken to MNU, had a chance encounter with a human who wanted to talk to him. The human made a deal to meet with this poleepkwa, and this evening he snuck into the District through one of the back fences. It would seem that, during the conversation, when the poleepkwa of mine was questioning him about what the human could actually do to help us—I'm all about actual results, you know—he let it slip that he had something to do with a certain video I have heard of. The human was then brought here and further…questioned…and he divulged that he had planned something involving two guards. And your shack."

I am too shocked to declare my innocence again.

"Again, I still believe that you didn't have anything to do with me being hurt by those guards. No poleepkwa would deliberately do something like that. You said that James wanted to meet me there?"

I nod, still confused by the turn of events. "Yes, and the human—I met him in MNU also—he said he wanted to help us—"

"I believe you, you stupid, disgraceful poleepkwa. No human tells the truth, no matter how much you want to make friends with them. You can't trust them at all."

"I must have told him about the meeting," I say numbly, and Alec swallows the lie, now thinks that the human set up the camera and the guards by himself. For what purpose? So that he could have a video of poleepkwa being beaten up. For his own amusement.

"I was just trying to help." Alec can believe that. He thinks of me as a human lover.

"Where is the human?"

"In James' shack. I wanted to keep him in a safe place until we could get this all straightened out. I'm fair." He says these last sentences for the benefit of the other poleepkwa in the room, to demonstrate what kind of a leader he is.

"Are you going to kill him?"

Alec looks at me, delighted that I have figured it out. "Yes."

A burst of quick thinking provides a reason for me to be alone with the human in the shack; I ask Alec if I can be the one to kill him, for he betrayed me, and there is a gun in James' shack. Alec, excited further, agrees, and we both leave, him leading his slowly-growing gang triumphantly through the District, taking a longer route so as to pick up new members awoken by the noise they are making, while I remain further behind. At one point, I think I see Joshua.

Brian sits on a chair, tied down by his legs, arms and chest. The amount of rope used would be about right for a poleepkwa; on a human, there are several extra loops which hold him in place.

"Hi, Brian." In here, the situation seems somewhat removed, although I know that the gang is waiting and listening outside. I find myself enjoying this moment of control over the human, instead of things being the other way around.

"Brian, why did you tell them about the video?"

He does a good job of staying calm. Perhaps it was part of his training with MNU. Or perhaps what's happened hasn't fully reached him yet. We may be easy to handle and control in MNU, but out here, in the District, we are ourselves on the land which has been given to us. "I'm going to be transferred. I won't be able to visit the District anymore—I won't be in South Africa anymore.

"I'm going back home."

No matter how much I hear it, it still hurts. The realization that this is not home. That I may never see it. It is painful.

"So I couldn't wait—I had to tell this prawn that I had met something. I didn't tell him everything, but he must have guessed…have you heard anything about it? In the newspapers? Have any prawns been talking about it?"

"Not that I know of."

"Well, somebody must have known. I said something about how we've got to fix things, you know, and he said that wouldn't be enough. And he started degrading humans—no, he started insulting me, like, daring me to hit him, and I figured that he must have a bunch of them out there with him, so I told him that that I wasn't going to hurt him, but he had to stop saying what he was, because I'm just trying to help, I'm doing all of this work for you, and here's this prawn spitting all over it while I'm just doing my best, and…and…" but he can't call up the primal aggressions that must have raged through him in a way that would make me understand why he let his guard down.

"So I was real angry, but I told him that I wasn't going to hurt him. I was going to walk away, but then he threw this final insult at me, he said that trying to talk to me was a waste of time, because they were going to take over—like that could ever happen—and I got real mad and said, this is why it takes a video like the one I made to get any attention from the humans. He wasn't mad then, but someone must have told him to listen up for anything about a video, because he took me back here."

"All right." I pace the shack. The gang—mob—outside is still waiting. We have some time. "When they took you back here, did they hurt you at all?"

"No. They. Just questioned me. But they were going to. I had to tell them."

"Did you tell them about me?"

"No. I said I did it all myself."

"Thank you, Brian. You're a loyal friend."

I take the gun off of the shelf, the gun James had gotten during his first trip to MNU, and carefully push my too-large finger through where the trigger is.

"Brian," I say, pointing the gun at the ground, "We're going to fake the torturing. Whether you survive tonight or not is going to depend on how loud you can scream."

He screams, a long, ear-splitting wail that grinds on the nerves and unsettles the mind. To the mob outside, a single gunshot may have been a clean, exciting sound of superiority over humans, but to hear this scream, this torture, is a reminder that the creatures who share this planet with us breathe, act, and feel pain.

Behind me, eventually, comes the sound of someone pounding on the door. It's a signal that I have gone too far. I fire one shot. Two shots. The noise is horrific—both Brian and I wince. I shove his chair over, drop the gun and face the door.

"It's finished," I call out. "He's dead."

Another knock on the door. Alec's voice. "Cory?"

"Leave me alone. I want to bury him here."

"Where'd you get the human gun?"

"It belonged to James. James was a friend of mine, and because of this human here, he ended up dead. I want to finish this here. I want to bury him myself. In memory of James. For all the suffering humans have caused us. For another friend of mine, Joshua. I have to do it myself.

"Go tell all the people you know about it, Alec. I'll be here, waiting, in the morning. I'm with you from now on. I believe you. I believe all of it. Just…leave me alone for a while. I have to finish this myself."

Silence. Then:

"All right, Cory. 'Til morning. And I'll be waiting out here."

"Okay." I sit down on the floor. "Just leave me alone, for a while. I think I'm losing my mind, here. But I'll be better. Later."

"'Til morning."

"'Til morning."

"And, next time, Cory?"

"Yes?"

"Be a little quieter."

"Okay."

I inch over to the human. I ask him, very quietly, "Are you okay?", and he whispers back that he is.

He keeps looking at me as I quietly untie his rope, and I think I can see something in his eyes. Something good. Until now, it's been him helping me, me making the demands while he worked on his chair, on his plans, on his own. And now I'm untying him. He helped me, but from now on, he will be the one owing me something. This is how things are going to change. This is the way it will work. One human and one poleepkwa at a time.

I finished untying him. He picked up the chair and I took the gun. Alec was outside, pacing, but his gang had temporarily left him. It was easy. He wasn't seriously expecting anything.

It was a nightmare, escaping from the District for the second time, but in retrospect I suppose that we were relatively safe. The odds of us meeting one of the gang who would recognize the human were slight, and any other poleepkwa would merely see a dark shape, possibly a human, running. They might run as well. The ones who were outside the shack when they heard the gunshot would think that they had seen a different human, that the human in the shack was dead.

Most of our species wouldn't think past the sound of the gunshot. And the smarter ones might not consider that I was defending the human by faking his death. Why would I?

Because this human had reached out for me when I was in a dark place.

We found his car parked in a field outside of the District. We met a few guards on the way out, but they didn't search it once Brian flashed his MNU card. Why would they? Humans don't smuggle prawns out of District 9, especially not ones from MNU. We have nothing to bargain with, and humans hate prawns anyway.

Why did he? Because I had done for him what he had done for me.

This was the difference. Instead of just talking to me and saying that he respected us but couldn't do anything, he was doing something. This was, in his words, what we need humans to be like.

I would be in exile now. The human would eventually move away, and I would have to stay here, in this city, and that meant either being sent to MNU or back to the District. Once Alec woke every poleepkwa in the District would know my name.

Hopefully, he'll give me a chance. Hopefully he'll listen, and if I stay in MNU for a year or a two—perhaps Brian can set me up with a fake charge before he leaves—maybe it'll all blow over.

Given enough time, and enough patient listeners, I'm certain that I can unravel it all.

The light in Brian's apartment was soft and left shadows running across the floor. I stood in the middle of it. Brian entered a door at the far end of the room and stayed there for a long time.

Then a human woman appeared in the doorway. I did not look at her face, feeling embarrassed and awkward and uncomfortable in my tattered rags of human clothing. I must be a horrible sight. I hoped that Brian had explained some things for me, and he must have, for in the next few seconds she walked up to me and reached out.

Our hands touched.

* * *

Closing music: youtube /watch?v=dNOcN8plcNo


End file.
